#1020 Let me bore you to sleep

Hello and welcome to Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

My name is Jason Newland. And in the background is Vinnie Andre Newland, the little doggy eating a new bone that hopefully will keep him occupied for the next period of time. So, I hope you're well.

Just before I proceed, I'd like to say thank you to Diana for your PayPal gift. Thank you. I couldn't reply because there's no email address on the transaction, so I wasn't able to reply.

But hopefully you'll hear this, so thank you. If you do wish to send me a PayPal gift, just... What? I've got no idea. What do you have to do? What's PayPal? PayPal.me forward slash Jason Newland.

I think that's it. Yeah, so the address is PayPal.com forward slash PayPal.me forward slash Jason Newland. Or you can just send it directly to my email address, which is Jason Newland at hotmail.co.uk. So thank you very much.

It is Sunday the 23rd of July. 2023. And it's 1736 o'clock.

And it's already time to put the lights on. I mean, really? It's July. Can you believe? What was it? July, August, September.

Three months time, it'll be Halloween. Now in England, of course I'm not talking for every single person that lives here, but just 93% of them. We don't really... Halloween's not a big deal so much.

I mean, it is for kids and stuff, and some people love it and that, but... I understand in some countries it's a huge deal. But then we have... Probably a bigger night would be Bonfire Night. Or Guy Fawkes, where people have bonfires and set off fireworks and stuff like that.

That always used to be a much bigger occasion when I was a kid than Halloween. In fact, I don't think I ever went out dressed up in a specific costume on Halloween. On Halloween night.

Although sometimes I would walk around and people would just give me money and sweets. Which was weird. I remember... Maybe it's the way I looked.

Maybe... No, that's not... That's weird. But yeah... Never really... Never did Halloween. I was never really into dressing up.

It wasn't really... It wasn't really my thing. I mean, I've dressed up, but... At school I used to dress up. Because I used to do drama.

As a subject. As a subject? What does that mean? All subjects are subjects, aren't they? No, but I chose to do drama. Like, you know, when we go to school.

When I went to high school. For the first three years, I had no choice in what subjects I did. And then for the fourth and fifth year, I could choose.

To take a bunch of subjects that I would then do O-Levels or GCSEs in. It turned out I didn't do those. I didn't get any qualifications, but... You know, they were there.

Available for those that wanted to get them. And... I chose drama because I thought it'd be easy. And I chose cooking because I thought it'd be easy.

Those were the two subjects that I chose. I think I chose technical drawing because I thought it'd be easy. I was wrong.

I was really wrong. I got out of that, though. I think I was... I did that for a year.

It was awful. I didn't know what I was doing. What's the other thing I chose? I think I chose RE because I thought it'd be easy.

And it was. I liked RE. It was... I found RE quite easy, to be honest.

It was quite an easy subject. I still didn't qualify or get any marks or anything, but... I just... I don't know. Because I was brought up in a semi-religious kind of life for parts of my childhood.

So I was kind of a Catholic when I was very young. And then I was kind of a... I was a Christian myself, like personally, when I was about 12. 11, 12, something like that.

Very into it, like in a big way. I used to walk around with my little Gideon's Bible, New Testament. And I'd be reading it all the time.

That's all I did. And I just went through a phase. And then when I left school, early 20s, I got into Buddhism, Taoism.

That kind of stuff. And then I kind of... After about 95, mid-20s, I wasn't really that involved. Or 96, I wasn't really that involved in anything like that.

Because my main involvement was just reading books and listening to cassette tapes. Learning how to meditate. Listening to a cassette course, which is what I bought.

And I'd read... I had a nice collection of Buddhist books in the early 90s. Zen, I was into Zen, Taoism as well. I used to... Taoism really, isn't it? Spelt with a T. Let's not confuse things.

And I got back into Buddhism again in November 2002. So, you know, kind of religious-y things have been quite in my life, I suppose. Not really so much now, but in the past.

I just... I found it quite easy to learn. It was, I suppose, from an anthropological or sociological aspect. It was kind of interesting to see how cultures have developed, you know, through the belief system that they collectively have or had.

I found that quite interesting. So, yeah, I don't know. What am I talking about this for? I don't know.

I really don't know. Oh yeah, drama. I did drama.

Oh yeah, I dressed up. And I dressed up in women's clothes. But let's get back to the drama classes.

So I did drama and I used to think that to be dramatic on stage involved shouting. That's what I thought. So what I would do is I would shout and get angry.

And it just... I don't know why I thought that, because I'd watched a lot of television and... I don't think there was that much shouting on television. Unless I was just expressing myself. Maybe.

I used to keep getting in trouble, though, in the drama. I did like drama, just because I could just mess around. And the teacher gave up on me a bit.

Most of the teachers were just like, well, he's just going to be silly and naughty, so just let him get away with as much as we can tolerate. And then kick him out when he's getting too unbearable, which is kind of what happened. And there's loads of stuff to wear.

And I used to put makeup on because we had a double lesson. It might have even been a triple lesson. At the end of a Friday.

So I think we had a lesson on a Tuesday. And then a lesson on a Friday. The last two lessons.

And then we'd have assembly on a Friday evening, or Friday afternoon. There'd be an assembly, which would be like, goodbye, everybody. I'm pretty sure they did.

Because I used to turn up in a dress. Admittedly, I could have took the dress off. But it amused me.

I mean, sometimes I would take the dress off, but I'd still have the makeup on. Because it was quite hard to get off. It wasn't like normal makeup.

It was more theatrical makeup, which was very... I don't know what the difference is, to be honest. But it didn't come off. I'd have eyeliner and lipstick on for weeks afterwards.

I would have told people, yeah, it's the lipstick from last Friday. You know, it's on a Sunday, Sunday dinner. They'd say, yeah, but you didn't have it on yesterday, did you? You didn't have lipstick on Saturday, so how come... And I'd say, no, it's from Friday.

You just didn't notice it yesterday. They'd say, we all did, we all lived with you, we saw. You didn't have any lipstick on yesterday.

I said, it's from Friday. Yeah, we had that conversation a few times. The problem is... Makeup.

Makeup's not enough for me. I don't mean like in a weird kind of fetishy way. I mean, I just didn't look particularly good with or without makeup.

I think eyeliner's good because it makes your eyelashes look longer and thicker. I mean, back then I had quite thick eyelashes anyway. And I had very thick, curly hair.

That's not really relevant to what I'm talking about. Yeah, I remember I actually had my hair half-permed when I was at school. Don't even know why.

I still don't know what a half-perm is. Genuinely, don't know. And then my hair dyed brown.

I remember them saying, so you want your hair dyed the same colour as it already is. I said, no, brown. They said, your hair is brown.

I said, my hair's dark brown, almost black. It's dark brown. I want a lighter shade of brown.

Who's going to notice? I'll notice. I'll notice. I'm going to notice.

And the blokes said, look, I don't know why you keep repeating yourself. I said, I'm not repeating myself. I'm not repeating myself.

I did it. And it looked awful. And it's the first time I've ever actually walked out of a hair salon where all the staff are laughing hysterically.

Because normally they hide the fact that they've made a mess. They didn't even hide it. They just, like, took my face, just laughing.

You just look ridiculous. Like, but you, you did this to me. You asked me to do this to you.

I didn't ask for this result. I asked for you to, you know, I was, I know I didn't say it out loud, but I was hoping it was implied that I wanted you to do a good job. You know, if you put someone's, built someone an extension on their house and it just fell over, you wouldn't start laughing saying, well, you asked for an extension.

That's what you got. No, but I expected it to stay up. It's a weird connection, isn't it? Home extensions and a half perm.

Did I say half perm or half wig? Half perm. Yeah. I did dye my hair blonde once.

Again, in, in the salon. Might have even been the same place. Still hear the laughter.

They burned my scalp, my neck. Even my, I couldn't believe it. Even my knees were scolded.

I mean, I don't know how it got onto my knees. But it was honestly all around. My forehead was red.

My scalp was red. And my, my hair was yellow. And again, they were laughing.

I said, why are you laughing? They said, well, there's enough mirrors in here. Why would you need to ask that? And I thought, well, I thought it looked good. You ever been, you ever thought of that as something, thought something and the whole world disagreed with you? That was one of those moments.

I also had both my ears pierced because I wanted to, I was into Bross at the time. This is a, I don't know if the rest of the world, I think they were quite big in Europe, but Bross were a twin brothers and a keyboard player, I think. And they were huge in about 1987, maybe 88, 87, 88, 87, so around that time, let's say 87.

They were huge. They were the biggest pop band in the country. Absolutely huge.

And they sold out Wembley multiple nights. They just really big, big, big, big act. And I thought if I bleached my hair blonde and put earrings in each ear, I would look like Matt Goss, the lead singer, or his twin brother, identical twin brother, who looked quite similar to him.

Didn't want to look like him, but I wanted to look like the lead singer. He was the best looking one, even though they were both identical. I think one of them's bald now.

Or he might shave his head. See, Luke, Matt, Luke, Matt, I think Matt was the singer. Luke was the bass player.

I'm not 100% sure. But one of them went on and became an actor. I think it was Luke and Matt was the singer.

But again, it might be Luke Goss. I think it was Matt Goss was the singer. One of them was the singer.

I did wonder though, could the other one sing? Because if they're identical, they both look the same, the same height, the same physical build, you wouldn't know that they weren't even the same person, unless you knew that they weren't the same person. You know, if they both, okay, for example, if you're walking down the street with one of them, and you see him quickly pull up a drain and jump down the drain.

And you think, that's weird, I'm turning around, I'm going to walk the other way.

And then you see another person. So Luke drops down the drain, Matt pops up another drain. Like, ta-da, like that, holding some balloons.

And you wouldn't think, oh, that's two different people. What are those twins? Unless perhaps they're wearing different clothes. But if they were wearing identical clothes, you wouldn't think, oh, why are those two twins? Unless of course, it was actually Matt and Luke, and you knew them because you're a Cross fan like I am.

Then you would like, oh, it's the twins again, jumping in and out of drains. What are they doing? Why do they keep doing that? Those jokers. Okay, here's a pound for a balloon.

Hmm. But, and you might think, what do you mean you are a fan of Cross? No, I still am. I stay a fan.

I stay a fan. Once I'm a fan of someone, I am always a fan of them for my whole life. Now you might think, that's weird.

No, I don't care if you, it doesn't matter. It's true though. Name one artist, one singer that I used to really like, and I'll tell you, I'll be able to tell you I still like, I'm still a fan of them.

Except Gary Glitter. Okay, move that one away. Because I used to be a fan of his.

But let's move that one away. So let's go all the way back. Grease, Olivia Newton-John, and John Travolta.

Yep, still fans. Still love that album. Love the Grease album.

Always will love the Grease album. I got chills doing all the playing. Love them, love the album.

Shaken Stevens. That's him by the way, drinking water. That sound reminds me of something.

My younger years. I, a bit more energy back then. Blimey.

You're making, if you got yourself a girlfriend again, you should be very happy. So I'll, what is it? Shaken Stevens, one of my favourite singers, and I'll always be a fan of his. I don't listen to his music anymore.

But I'll always remember his songs. And sometimes I do listen occasionally. Buddy Holly.

I was a fan of his. I mean, he was gone like 15 years or so before I was even born. But, I used to be a big Buddy Holly fan.

In my early, early to middle teens. I came with the Monkees as well. Hey, hey, we're the Monkees.

People say we're monkeying around. But we're too busy singing to put any money down. I was a bit Bob Dylan-esque, wasn't I? We're just trying to be friendly.

Leave the house for a little while and I'll meet you at the station. We'll be here by 4.30. Because I've made my reservation. Don't be slow.

Ho, ho, ho, ho. Okay, I ruined the moment, didn't I? I apologise for nothing. So, who else was there? The late 70s, there was a lot of songs that I liked and I still like them.

There's not, I don't think there's one song that I used to like that I dislike now. There are some songs that I got fed up with. But that wasn't until my early 90s.

There were a few songs that were just I had a job where the radio was being played all the time in this factory that I worked. So there was let's have a look, think of it. There were a few songs that were number one for way too long.

So, there was The Bodyguard. That song I have nothing, nothing, no, no, no, I love that song actually, that's not one. I Will Always Love You.

Now, I love that song but they played it and played it and played it and played it and it stopped being my favourite song on the album. I Have Nothing is my favourite one on there. What's the one it's basically these songs, most of them were to do with movies apart from the Meatloaf.

I Would Do Anything For Love But I Won't Do That. We used to have debates around what that was. What wouldn't you do? What would you do anything for love but you wouldn't do? What is it you wouldn't do? And you wouldn't be amazed at some of the things that popped up during that debation.

And what's the other one? Love Is All Around. So that was from Free Weddings. So that was Wet Wet Wet.

I'm pretty sure they took the song off. They were just like it's been at number one too long. Even they, this is the band got bored of being number one.

They'd had they'd released other songs that got all the way to number two and then disappeared again. And people had forgotten about them whilst this number one single was still there. 17 years.

Still there now. It was there for a long time. And I think Wet Wet Wet took it off.

Had enough. Or had enough. Mighty Pelo.

I was a big fan of Mighty Pelo as well. I love Wet Wet Wet. Mighty Pelo.

Great voice. Great voice. But I prefer the songs he did whilst it was number one.

Just because it was just too long. It was a brilliant song. It was there for too long.

And the radio stations kept playing it. Like every 22 minutes it'd be played. What other songs? Oh yeah, the Bryan Adams song I would do anything for love No.

Look into your eyes So tell me what's love worth living for Don't tell me it's all that I love for You know it's true Everything I do I do it for you Yeah, so that was Kevin Costner Another Kevin Costner film Kevin Costner has a lot to answer for.

So that's two songs two Kevin Costner movies where the song from the movie or from the soundtrack of the movie has dominated the charts for years on end Now I'm talking about the UK charts I don't know about other countries or the world Well the other countries is the world isn't it I guess But as far as I'm aware those songs were universally very popular I don't think the Meatloaf song was connected to a movie I don't think so You know that would I'm not doing that I love you but

I'm not doing that That one No way I really love her but she wants me to do that I can't I'll do anything for her but I won't do that No I don't I don't think that was connected to a movie but it might have been I might be wrong Oh there is one song that I remember I was in this place and this bloke really didn't like the song it was a song from Frozen The cold doesn't bother me anyway I love that song Now I'm not I'm not saying

I'm not a Disney fan I'm not a Disney I'm not a Disney fan I just is I'm probably more old school Disney you know going back to the early 70s or the late 70s because I don't know if anyone is old enough to remember this or maybe they show reruns but there was a time when Disney would be there would be a Disney show not a Disney show but a Disney television show but it would be on every Saturday early evening and it would start off with you know the fireworks

around the big tower and everything and then you know is it Tinkerbell whatever and then it would start sometimes it would be cartoons so it would be I don't know Mickey Mouse or whatever sometimes it would be a live a live show like human beings I mean and that's when I was happy I preferred it when it was people when it was an actual show with human beings on it rather than cartoons it just I used to sort of oh please let it be humans I don't know why I just

it I felt happy when it happened please let it be humans please don't let it be animation I don't want to see humans I want to see humans and when it was I just was over the moon literally I jumped over the moon I actually jumped over it and I was very I don't know why I got so excited about that but I liked the stuff that they did it was I don't know it was just nice I mean I wasn't very fussy about what I watched on television back then

I would sit pretty much all day and night every day and night forever watching television you know that's I would do that I didn't care what it was that I was watching I would just sit there watching it sometimes not all the time I mean I did like to read and I liked to do other things as well as I got older especially in my last couple of years of high school when I got a bit obsessed with martial arts I was I was watching loads of kung fu movies as

well as training and stuff but I also used to watch loads of comedy movies I remember discovering Steve Martin long before he was famous in this country it was only he did is it the other guy and part of me I don't know what it was the man with two brains yeah the man with two brains something like that and I just hilarious absolutely hilarious early 80s late 70s early 80s I think films loved them still for me the funniest stuff that he did was that was the early movies he

did they were so good and he really became a star here with Roxanne that was his real breakthrough movie and that was that was a huge big big hit in the UK and I loved that film I still do I haven't seen it for probably 20 years but I do love it there's certain parts of it that I really love just I mean he's everyone in it's really good certain reasons I really like it I guess for the time as well late 80s quite a special time in my life I

was turning from a from a girl into a boy I was transforming I don't know whether to watch that new Transformers movie I mean do you need to have watched the old movies first I don't know yeah the comedy movies I love the comedy movies it wasn't just yeah it wasn't just him there was loads of different comedy movies that were I guess really old or B movies but they were straight to video maybe and I watched I reckon I probably watched every single comedy movie in the video shop every

single one and pretty sure well yeah I know I did at the time anyway I watched every single martial arts movie outside of that that was the only two genres I really liked I didn't watch anything up to date any like new movies because we used to we went through a period at home it was really nice actually I don't know but we went through this period when when we got the first video recorder it was in our family I don't mean just our family I mean uncles and aunts may

have had one as well but you know in our house where I lived my dad got a it was a before VHS before DVD was VHS I'm just I know most people know this but some might not know this and there might be some people listening that have only ever known DVDs if all you know is DVDs look outside there's a sky out there there's lots more to life than DVDs anyway there was VHS before VHS Betamax before Betamax I think it was a 2000 series I think it was Sony

it might not have been Sony but it was a 2000 series and with them you could watch and record on both sides of the tape and they were longer and they were better quality but they were more expensive and they the I think really what happened is Betamax managed to make them cheaper so people bought the Betamax and then VHS came along and they were perhaps better quality and just better machines maybe or maybe they they just promoted themselves marketed better I don't know but VHS became the leader I can

even visualise the pictures in my mind the images of the different machines that we had because I'm pretty sure the yeah because the the more old the more newer video players or recorders used to push the tape into the side of it but the original ones the very originals used to press a button and then it'd pop up and you'd have to slide it into that one and they'd be big old tapes the size of I don't know what kind of size a small horse possibly and unfortunately the same shape

so that's not good difficult to find something that would fit and sometimes just like old tape recorders they would get tangled up and they'd always say oh if you was it you had to rewind so you'd take it back and you'd have to rewind otherwise it'd be a penalty like I don't know a pound or something so that the person that rented it out next would be able to just watch it without having to without having to rewind it and there was always that conversation ready to take the videos back

yeah have you rewound it yeah yeah it's rewound I remember once I was taking it to the shop and it hadn't rewound I forgot so I'm actually trying to manually rewind it as I'm walking down the street I remember my brother said like I don't know why you're bothering with that I said look I'm worried that when we get to the shop they'll find us for it being rewound for not being rewound and he said I think you need to worry about the rain and I said oh because I didn't

think about that it was completely soaked but there you go he used to say that a lot I think you need to worry about the rain that was his catchphrase luckily we lived in a place where it rained a lot so that it was ok I didn't realise it was his catchphrase until he moved to the Bahamas and it didn't rain so much and it was just so out of place and embarrassing he'd be ordering cocktails waiter would ask him and he said you need to worry about the rain and

it was just out of context you know what am I talking about so yeah I um I've been thinking about what I can do with this podcast as far as you know start mixing things up a little bit and I did I made one yesterday I didn't I didn't make an image or anything I just posted them let's see yeah the what was I going to do I started searching for positive stories like websites that have positive stories from around the world and I found 10 websites well actually it's 9

websites or 8 websites 1 blog and 1 YouTube channel so I'm not interested in a YouTube channel oh that's another thing I'm not sure if I mentioned it but I turned off because I've cancelled well I've now cancelled 3 internets so I was paying for my friends broadband so I've cancelled that I've cancelled the broadband I had originally which was only really any good for just watching telly like streaming didn't really do much else I could use it as a backup it was like my backup internet because I need it

for what I do for uploading and stuff and I had a dongle broadband which is I still have it it's pay as you go monthly wifi broadband and it's I thought it was pretty good and it always has been pretty good until I tried to use it for more than what I have been using it for so it's good for using it on the computer but when I turned off the sky broadband yesterday I just wanted to disconnect it all to see because it cancels on the 4th of August I

wanted to see if or the 3rd of August or something like that I don't know in a month's time or two months two weeks time something I wanted to see if everything can function without it if I can function just with the dongle with the other dongle you know so I got rid of two broadbands which is £80 a month so I reduced my money by £80 which is good and I thought well if I can just keep that one which is £28 a month and then I can stream stuff

and everything well it turns out no it wouldn't allow me to stream YouTube on my television don't know why I tried everything to try and sort it out but nothing worked I didn't try everything I didn't bang my toe on the oven you know why would that help but that would probably include everything wouldn't it you know jump out of a you know jump out of a parachute is that a thing you know anyway I didn't try everything in the whole wide world but I tried everything that I could think

of including searching online just try and find a some kind of solution but I was able to stream the other stuff but just not that not YouTube and YouTube is the thing I probably spend you know probably 70% of my viewing time is YouTube probably 50% at least and I like to watch lectures and I like to watch educational stuff as well as the odd silly thing and watching it on television is so much better than watching it on a laptop just so I can see things better when it's on

television so yeah I thought oh this is ridiculous so I thought I'll test something else out I turned the thing off completely turned it off and I used the my on my phone my mobile phone I've got what is it called personal hotspot using the mobile data with the personal hotspot I'm able to use my what's it the the laptop I'm able to use I'm able to watch television YouTube and I'll stream everything else all works on there like on the television I mean and I'm able to use it to

use it as internet for the for the laptop it also works on the iPad and I can also upload recordings using the data because unlimited data on the phone so I'm now that's what I'm left with so now I've just got that so I'm using just the phone for everything for data wise for internet and I've cancelled the other mobile broadband so that's another £28 gone so it's it's helped but it's like oh I quite like having the broadband because sometimes I use it I'm doing multiple things at the same

time which I won't really be able to do anymore I'll be I have to sort of stick to just doing the one thing and as I said recently I won't be able to upload any big videos but that's alright it's just that's ok oh don't mind whoops cancel reset what's this blimey unable to update the episode ok right so what I'm going to do is just check something that's not really relevant to what we're talking about but I want to see there's certain things that for some reason yeah so on

the speaker I use speaker as my podcast host and I've got a thing which is basically transcribe this episode with music's match which is free it's part of the service and I just do it well it's not working I think it's because I'm using that internet on there there's always these little things that it won't let me do it's strange very strange but I'll just see how I get on I mean I can record the podcast onto the phone if I need to I can edit it on the phone I

can do everything on the phone it's a little bit of a strain for my eyes to be honest because it's a small screen but I've done it before and I can do everything just on the phone and then upload everything but I shouldn't need to do that because I do the internet's working ok on on here so I've got the laptop in front of me the internet's working absolutely fine it's basically down as my iPhone so cool groovy 486 videos so what I did yesterday is I just shared my the

four versions of my podcast from yesterday onto the YouTube channel and that's what I'm planning to do from now on because if people want to listen they listen if they don't they don't it's fine you know it's there for people if they do want to like listen to it on YouTube it's just another place for people to listen if they want to there's loads of videos on the YouTube channel which has got images and graphics and stuff like that there's quite a few with me on there talking as well like

with my funny face but I'm unable to do those videos anymore because the internet it takes up too much time and energy and I literally won't be able to do a single thing while I'm doing that and it'll take hours and hours and hours and hours and hours so I won't be making any videos unless perhaps I do a live stream that's a possibility so I might do some live streams to YouTube and then just upload that as a YouTube video which it will be so maybe I might do that

but we'll see we'll see so I've got 1016 subscribers blimey it's only taken me 17 and a half years it's not bad is it 1000 subscribers in 17 years how many is that per year it's 50 60 65 a year no 60 100 100 a year that'd be 10 years so 70 a year 60 a year it's not a lot is it it's not it's not a lot although it has gone up by 2 in the last day so that's nice it's ever so nice oh yes oh very pleased I

am oh yes had a couple of nice comments and I've replied to them so I can't read them they've gone they've all gone unless I can go back and find it okay let me have a look YouTube YouTube my baby baby YouTube okay Carol says Jason your podcast really do just what I need and I'm very grateful that's nice isn't it Quillen says hello Vinnie and Uncle Hubert says that's Sebastian by the way if you want to see oh really I've mentioned this before but he's got a picture on his

profile and it's of me in about 20 30 years time as an old man he's used some kind of aging software it's me you can even see my books in the background it's honestly that's his profile picture on his YouTube channel right so that's the end of this recording remember to be kind to yourself you deserve to be happy lots of love speak to you tomorrow bye