(no music) #1255 Trivia Tuesday - Let Me Bore You To Sleep (17th December 2024)

Hello and welcome to Trivia Tuesday. That was rubbish, wasn't it? Oh well, so it's Trivia Tuesday. So Let Me Bore You To Sleep.

My name is Jason Newland. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. Today is Tuesday the 17th of December 2024.

My website is jasonnewland.com which is basically my podcast. It's the home of my podcast. So whenever I release new recordings, they are automatically added to my podcast.

As well as that, there are, there's a place where you can leave reviews. You can, there's playlists on there as well. So I've been updating those.

So now there's the Let Me Bore You To Sleep, stress and pain relief. Jason's bedtime storytime, sleepy boring objects, stop nail biting, let me bore your pain away, stop smoking, relaxation for stress and panic attacks, and relax and sleep hypnosis daily. So they're basically they're all broken up into playlists of 50.

Should be up there. Okay, good. And I just added the relaxation for sleep.

I'm relaxing sleep hypnosis daily ones. So if I click on one to 50, it's, it's just easy, you can go down and it's easy to search because there's only 50. So there's an embedded list, and you can play them.

And you can also download as if you want for later listening. Also, on the website, there's information about the background music that I use, which is deep relaxation from Kevin MacLeod, at incompetech.com. So you can check out that information. There's not really much, there's a few bits on it, you can check it out.

But that's the home of the podcast. This podcast, my podcast, all of my podcasts, everything I do. I still got to add the deep sleep whisper hypnosis recordings, and maybe a couple of other things.

But most of the playlists are now done, or available. So it's a little bit more to do. But I'll do that over the over the coming week.

Oh, where to start? So I'm meeting. My dad is coming to visit me. And so we got a date for it.

And I actually went yesterday to try and book a table. But they didn't have any room. No room in the inn.

So they'd completely they sold out. So I was like, Oh, okay. Because last week, when I spoke to my dad, I said, Well, I can book it for you if you like.

I can just go in there and just book it. Because I only live around the corner. And I figured that you would need to book it because it's Christmas.

It's the busiest Saturday, or the busiest weekend rather of the year, isn't it this weekend coming? Because Christmas is on the 17th today. So Wednesday's the 18th. Thursday's the 19th.

Saturday, Friday's the 20th. Saturday's the 21st. Sunday's the 22nd.

Monday's the 23rd. Tuesday's Christmas Eve 24th. And Wednesday will be Christmas Day.

So the weekend is literally just three days before Christmas. It's the last weekend before Christmas. Therefore, it's the busiest weekend of the year, I would argue.

I think I'm pretty safe to say that's the case. Well, it was full. The place was full.

So because my dad said, Oh, can you book it? I said, Oh, okay. I thought, Oh, I wish I hadn't offered. Because it meant I had to go around there.

But I did. So I went around and, you know, stuck to my part of the plan, my part of the deal. And but there was nothing.

So I contacted my dad and said, They're full. They're full, man. And he said, Don't call me man.

Sorry, dad. And he said, Well, have you got any other ideas? Because he doesn't live where I live. And I don't mean he doesn't live in the same room.

I mean, he doesn't live in the same city. So he lives a long way away. It's a heck of a long way if you're going to walk it.

But then most places are apart from apart from places that aren't very far away. And he, he contacted me and said, Well, if you can find somewhere else, can you can you suggest anywhere else? So Oh, really? This is getting complicated already. I said, Okay.

And I found somewhere that I used to go when I was at university. And it's a place that Yeah, I've been in there when I was at university. And I've also been in there since.

But a long time ago, I went there with a friend. But I don't know if we ate anything or not. It's a long time ago.

It's kind of probably six years ago. Yeah, but that was midweek. So it's fairly quiet, which is and that's the only time I've ever gone in there is when it's quiet.

I'm not Yeah, don't feel like busy places. So I said to my daddy, I said, Yes, Daddykins, I will. You know, I'll have a look.

He said, Don't call me Daddykins. Blimey. I'm running out of names for him.

So what do you want me to call you? He said, Dad. I replied, Don't call me Dad. We laugh.

Anyway, I went, I found a place, went online, got their address, and I got the menu. So basically, I said, here's a website, check that out. Which is further away for me means I've got to actually travel to get there.

I mean, technically, wherever I go, I have to travel to get there. Even the bathrooms traveling, isn't it? But you know, the other place was a 10 minute walk. Maybe 12 minutes.

Yeah, maybe 12 minutes. But this place is probably 45 minute maybe. Yeah, 45 minute walk.

So it's a fair, fair distance. And so I sent in the details sent in the menu because I do do it. First of all, actually, first of all, let's be let's get this truthful.

First of all, I said they don't do a Christmas menu. So I texted that to him. And then I replied.

Then I got back to him and said, Oh, whoops. They do do a Christmas menu. And he texted back, Don't call me whoops.

It was getting silly at this point. And I said, Look, Dad, people are doing a podcast, they're just gonna think I'm making this up. So please, can we just not do that anymore? And he said, Okay.

But don't call me whoops. I didn't call you whoops. And so what happened is I sent him the link, you know, to the website.

And he said, Yeah, we'll take that is our menus. Now I want to read that. I'm going to read the text out.

And this might you might think what's this got to do with what am I doing today? Trivia Tuesday, what's he got to do with Trivia Tuesday? Well, I had a dentist appointment today. I cancelled. I just didn't feel like I wasn't in the mood for my mouth to be violated.

I just just wasn't wasn't in wasn't in that zone, you know. So our next appointments may next year. Blimey.

So, so, so, so, so, so, where's the message you sent me? All right, so I said he said, he's looked at the menu that Okay, we've decided So we're going to have a Christmas dinner and all that stuff. But then, but then he's added changes to it, which you can't do on the website. There's no way to change things.

It's not like Uber Eats where you can like say, well, I want this and I want that. And you know, no, you want one without one dinner without Yorkshire pudding. And then he deserts.

He wanted the Christmas pudding comes with custard. That was the set menu. And he said, one without custard and one with ice cream.

There's no way I can do that on on online doesn't offer that service to remove stuff and add things. And I was getting a bit frustrated if I'm honest with you, it was annoying me, because I was trying to do this, but not want not want to go the text I thought okay, fair enough. And then I went online to do all and it took ages.

And not only did it take ages, let me just have a look. As you can read it here. I did send them a text message afterwards.

It's really Oh, come on. Okay, I can't find it. Well, I ended up maybe it's on my thing.

I ended up paying multiple times. So I had to stop anything in place. Stop my name.

And so I ended up paying first of all, for the pre order. So you book it to cook to book to book it. I had to pay 20 pounds.

So I paid that. I didn't know it's gonna cost me any money. Normally when I come up there.

We just go and find somewhere to start to eat and that's it. And then when it's time to pay the bill, I go to the toilet. It's a standard thing.

Anyway, hasn't quite worked out like that for me. I started ordering things payment made 44 pound 94 that's added on to the 20 pound of paid. And I thought, okay.

And then he said, you still haven't booked still haven't ordered another thing. Another meal I forgot to order one of the meals. I don't know how that works.

So I ended up paying another 14 pound 98. So I'm trying to think, okay, booking details. It should should allow me I can tell you how much it cost me all in all.

It's under my name. Sexy JJ. Right.

Cost me 79 pound 92 pence for a meal for four people. And 79 pound 92 pence. That's my life savings.

I literally had to go to my savings account, which I'd well obviously wasn't a lot there but 79 pound 92 left me with nothing. 70 79 pound 92. No, I did have enough money over to buy some milk.

That's good. 79 pound. It is like what? So that is going to have to be their Christmas presents.

That's going to have to be it. As soon as they're my brother. So it's three.

That's their their breath, their Christmas presents. Done. And I kind of I mean, I was like, well, yeah, but you're going as well.

I wouldn't pay to have a dinner wouldn't pay to have a Christmas dinner for myself, you know, generally. But it would be nice to see them. I'm sure be nice for them to see me.

But 80 pound. 80 pound. That's without a tip.

And that's without drinks. I'm going to be taking a lot of tap water. I'll be having it.

It's crazy. So yeah, so that's that's the weekend booked Sunday or whatever. So I it's a little bit of shock because I thought okay, when it first said 20 pound deposit, I thought fine.

Okay, it's 20 pound. I found a way to get that money back. But no, no, they weren't actually allow me to book it without paying.

I thought that that was the whole idea of a deposit is you pay a deposit and then you pay the rest when you get there. But no, the deposit was just to hold the tables until Thursday or Wednesday, maybe Thursday. Yeah, no, I think yeah, Thursday, I think.

So we will hold the tables till Thursday. So you got to Thursday to pay it. So I just paid it last night.

80 pounds. 80 8080 pounds. That's my Christmas budget gone.

So that's done. Yeah, so that I'm gonna just it'll be the Christmas Christmas present. Which means I don't have to buy anything.

Well, lucky. So tomorrow, or when I get some a bit of money, I'm going to send some cards out. And that'll be it.

There's only one to could try and get some cards from Amazon, and just do them as Christmas cards. I didn't give them to my dad. And you can give them to other people.

So 123 Yeah, so I don't need many. Is there enough money for me to get anything from Amazon? How much I got in the bank? Let's have a look. So 22 is I got four pounds.

I might be able to get some cards for that. And hopefully they can get delivered tomorrow. Long as a by Saturday, but by Sunday, Saturday, Friday really gives me time to because I think sometimes when things get delivered on Saturday, they don't always get delivered by early.

And it's always like Vinnie if you just guffed to you or me. So right, so that was it. That's all.

He knows what I mean. He must be looking at me like very proud look on his face. I mean, I've got the window open partly by closed it mainly closed it most of it because of the sound in the garden and I don't want the little one to get all stirred up by the sounds outside.

Right. It was weird. I went to bed quite early last night.

Well, about nine o'clock is about normal for me really nine to 10 between nine and 10 is what I go to bed. And Vinnie woke me up and I got woke up a couple of times. There was some bit of door slamming and stuff which broke me up.

And he started barking at some point. And then the next thing I know is half past eight, or 10 past eight, I woke up. It's the latest I've woken up in months.

I'm normally up by about four. Just I guess I must have needed to sleep. That was a boring story, wasn't it? So I was going to do Trivia Tuesday based upon Christmas.

Yeah, it's a bit of a Christmassy theme this week. So let's have a look. Oh, Steve Bunce.

Why is he in the news? Woman arrested for suspected. Oh, Steve Bruce. I thought it was Steve Bunce.

Steve Bruce. Okay. My neighbor was talking about Steve Bunce, but it wasn't.

It's Steve Bunce. I put in Bunce and Steve Bruce still comes up. Steve Bunce.

Okay, right. So what I was going to do is a I don't know, maybe try and find some trivia, trivia facts about Christmas. Find trivia.

So I'm going to use chat GPT, find trivia facts, facts about Christmas from around the world, world in history. Okay. I don't know how many it's gonna find.

So, hey, we'll start off with Norway, the Yule Log. Oh, God, that smell. Finny.

It's proper stinky. Norway, it might be me. Hopefully not.

So the Yule Log. In medieval Norway, the tradition of burning a Yule Log originated. That's not good.

That's a weird sentence. In medieval Norway, the tradition of burning a Yule Log originated. That's not a very good sentence, is it? Is that grammatically correct? I understand it, but it just sounds a bit of a weird sentence.

Families would burn a large log in the fireplace for warmth, often keeping it lit for 12 days, symbolising good luck and protection against evil spirits. How can one log be lit for 12 days? And you might think, well, do you know about logs? Oh, well, I used to have a fire in my old house where I used to live with my family. We had a, I think, actually, there was a fireplace, not just downstairs, but also upstairs as well.

But there was definitely a fireplace. And my dad also had a fireplace, a fireplace in his new house that he's lived in since 1990. So I guess it's not quite so new.

It's only been there 34 years, so it's quite a new thing. And so he used to have fires there, open fires with coal or logs, you know, especially like Christmas, really more than any other time. And we used to have that in the house that we lived in when I was a kid.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of a point I'm telling you. I mean, it doesn't make me an expert on fireplaces. But I know one thing, a log doesn't last forever.

I mean, they do last a while. A nice big log, you know, sometimes you have to keep poking it and that. And there's something quite beautiful I used to find of just looking at a fireplace.

But a log, one log, unless, unless the fireplaces were absolutely huge, or unless they classed by burning a log, as in they're burning it in pieces. So they'll burn part of it. And then I'll slice another bit off, you know, like a sausage sandwich, kind of take a bit of the sausage off.

And it's nothing like a sausage sandwich, is it really? But maybe this basically a log is a tree, isn't it? So maybe a really, really long tree, a thick and long, which is ideal, I suppose, I've been told would be a would last quite a long time, but not all at once in one go, because how many people have houses, where they could have a fireplace that's big enough to fit 100 foot tree?

I'm guessing nowhere. No, probably nowhere in the world. I might be wrong.

But I'm guessing nowhere. So maybe they do like take bits off at a time. Yeah, I remember that.

Oh, lovely. So it used to be a bit weird. I mean, the fireplace as long as the air can, you know, the smoke can be got out of the room, that's good.

But it was, yeah, I liked it. I like the open fire. It had a we had a what's it a like a fire guard thing, because bits used to used to spark out of the fire onto the carpet.

And I remember my dad saying, can you please just not leave it there? If it happens, if you're in the room on your own. So I just like watching them burn. They used to leave a big hole in the carpet, and that wasn't didn't go down very well.

And my dad saying it's a big, you need to stop if something shoots out of fire or falls out of fire onto the carpet. You need to call me. You know, because I'll say I maybe I was a bit too young to be like touching it myself.

But you used to call me or one of your brothers will put it back on to the fire, call someone. But what you didn't realise is nothing fell off. I'm the one that pulled stuff out of fire and we were chucking at each other, me and my brothers.

But again, that probably wasn't a good idea. So Ukraine spiderweb decorations. You think about it? Oh, no, I think of Halloween.

Okay. Ukrainians. Now I don't know if it's true.

I'm just going on what it says here might be true might not be true. Ukraine, Ukrainians decorate their Christmas trees with artificial spiderwebs. The tradition stems from a folk tale about a poor family whose tree was magically covered with webs that turned to gold and silver on Christmas morning.

Oh, okay. And I quite like one of those wouldn't you? Christmas tree that turns into gold. You know, it's weird.

I was looking at something ages ago. It was in the past, most things are. And at one point silver was worth more than gold.

Like on the world market, it was worth more than gold. It might not be true, but I just I have a memory of that. I tell you what I always never understood, never understood.

Do you know the I mean, it might not be your religion or whatever. But there's a tale of like a little baby called Jesus. And the Christmas is kind of based around that, like the birth of this baby, Jesus is kind of the nativity.

And that's what the whole Northern Star and Christmas Eve. And you know, all that stuff. And Christmas Day being the birth of Jesus.

Again, you might not have heard heard of him, but it's quite a famous story. And when the baby when baby Jesus is born, and his mum, Mary and his stepdad, Joseph, they were they were visited by three, not three nuns, three pharaohs, wise men, they were wise men. Yeah, they were wise.

And they were men. So three wise people. And they trouble they didn't know how to find that they I don't know something.

I can't remember the exact story. I don't know if they read it in their horoscope in the paper or whatever. But they said, that's all we have to go and see new babies being born.

The King of Kings and stuff. So they're like, Oh, Bobby, do you fancy going? Yeah, Ted, I will. What about you, Darren? Okay.

So they all kind of came along and they got onto their camels, as you do. And there was no camel that you know, back then, there's no camel toe jokes. They're very sensitive about the camels.

Because camel, believe it or not, camels don't have a great sense of humour. They're very reactive emotionally. So you have to be really careful what you said around them.

So yeah, so what happened is, they decided to go and see the baby like, well, it's going to be a baby. And I think one of them said, Well, yeah, there's always babies. And I said, No, this one's being born.

It's a special. It's a special baby. So why be born on Christmas Day? No.

Yeah. So we're going to go and see the baby. Yeah.

Well, where we're going to stay. So that's something that was never covered in the story. Where did they stay? It's hard enough to get a room in a hotel.

You know, like in the month of December, the whole of the month of December is quite difficult. It's very expensive. But I don't know what happened.

I didn't mention it unless of course they had tents. It's hard. I don't know.

But you don't want to mess with a camel because they get the right hump. Oh, I'm so proud of myself. Embarrassed.

So yeah, they so they came and saw there's a little baby born in a manger was basically is a place where the horses lived. I think it's a nice no one says okay, go and get the horses out of the manger. No, they get the horses out of the stables.

So I think it was a stable. But for some reason, they call it a manger. Because it way in the stables, where the horses live is not really very catchy.

But these the the three wise people were like, oh, I gotta go and find the baby. Where is it? Don't know. Well, I was supposed to go and see if we don't know where it is.

First of all, perhaps we shouldn't call it, it. We don't know if it's going to be a boy or a girl, do we? True, I hadn't thought about that. Oh, but it's the son of God.

It's going to be a boy. Yeah, but what if it's the daughter of God? How? What do you mean how? You know, babies are born, sometimes they're boys, sometimes they're girls. You have heard of the concept of a female human, haven't you? Yeah, yeah, but just it's the son of God.

So it's not going to be a girl. Yeah, you don't know, do you? You don't know. I mean, who knows? You don't know how, you know, you just don't know.

He said, I know what you're trying to say. You're trying to be diplomatic and careful, aren't you there? Yeah, exactly. You got to be careful what we say these days.

Okay, fair enough. So we just move on from the subject. Okay, fair enough.

And one of them said, well, how are we going to find them? They? How are we going to find them and they? And the other one said, well, I don't know my satnav is not working. Satnav? What's a satnav? Keep up to date. You are so prehistoric.

You just like, you're going to be it's ridiculous. You think we're going to travel by camel for the rest of our lives? You know, this isn't. And that's when he realised he just dissed the camels.

It's not a good idea. And the other two like looked at him. Oh, why did you say that about the camels? You know how sensitive they are? Luckily, it was a really cold night and the camels had ear warmers on.

So they didn't hear. That was lucky. Plus, they were dressed as reindeers.

And one of the wise people said, I've got an idea. What's that then? He said, or he or she said, they said, what about if we follow a really, really bright star? Okay, that's good. So he said, let's spot that one.

He said, that's the moon. Did you not go to school? He said, no, I didn't. Didn't have schools in these days, did we? Okay, fair enough.

But do you know how to, how to put together a tent? Which is a pretty pointless thing to say. One of them said, you know, one day, we're going to find a use for all this sand. So what do you mean? He said, well, I have my tent up last night.

And obviously, we're in the sand. But you know, the holes that we have in there, you have to have holes to look out of. And you know, we call them windows because of the wind.

Well, the wind was blowing, the wind was blowing sand through the windows. We need something to block the windows up. He said, but you've got something, you've got some cardboard.

He said, yeah, but then I can't see out of the window, can I? I want to be able to see out. Otherwise, it might as well just be in a cupboard. It's nice to be able to see things.

He said, but you're in a desert, what you're going to see is just sand. So that's your problem. Again, you can upset the camels.

This is their life, this is their environment. And all you're saying is, it's just sand. This is everything to them.

What do you mean, everything? How can sand be everything to a camel? It's their life, it's where they were born, it's where they live. It's not just sand. There's cactuses, there's various animals that live here, there's weather conditions.

And Vinnie's having a dream about something. One of the wise men said, who's Vinnie? And the other two wise men said, oh, come on. You know, he keeps interjecting reality with weird stories.

We don't know where we're going, don't know what, you know, what, just go along with it. Okay. So this window, what we need is a way to look through it.

But without it being open, so the sand can't come through. If only there was something we could do with that sand. Like a solution.

We could use the problem, the thing that's causing the problem as the solution. But they couldn't think of anything. He said, what would you want to do? Rub the sand together and make it clear, like something that you can see through.

Anyway, one of them said, oh, look, why don't we follow that star, that really bright one. And the other, one of the other wise people said, well, it makes sense to follow the brightest one, because otherwise the ones that aren't as bright might be harder to follow. And they all agreed.

So they followed the star. Now, when I read this, you know, when I learned this story, when I was a kid, very small kid, most kids are smaller than me, you know, I was a small child, smaller than the average. And I did wonder, because there's been times when I've got lost.

And I thought, what if I follow this, follow the northern star, that'll lead me to where I want to go. But then my best friend Dean always used to say, yeah, but we don't want to visit Jesus, we just want to get home. Or that's not where the cinema is.

Or I want some ice cream. He used to come out a lot of things like that. It's very hard, what I'm trying to say, it's hard to follow a star.

Because technically, they are like, hundreds of miles away, aren't they? Hundreds, probably, I don't know, well, good 20, 30 miles away, the stars in the sky. How are you supposed to follow it? I mean, the only way to follow the star is to go upwards. Anyway, somehow, somehow, the three wise people managed to find themselves at the exact destination of where Joseph's stepson was born.

And that was a difficult conversation. Because Mary had to break that to Joseph. Because he didn't know at the time.

And so he turned up, they went into the hotel, I said, don't suppose you've seen the Son of God? No, no, what are you talking about? So it was a little baby. And there was an inn, a local inn, they said, well, no, there's been no babies born as far as I know, but there's some really large lady came in earlier. And I didn't know if she's pregnant or not, I didn't want to ask, just seemed a bit rude.

I said, Oh, okay, where is she? He said, he said, Oh, she booked into the other hotel. This is like two days ago. So they went around and it wasn't Mary.

And she was very offended. And then they found the, the, the stables, basically, where Mary was, and she'd given birth to baby Jesus. And the three wise people knocked on the door.

I say a door, I mean, it was a, it was a barn, wasn't it? I mean, it wasn't really a door. It didn't even have a lock on it. It was blown open, very windy.

Funny they had a window with something in between it. Again, it wasn't. And so they went, they said, Excuse me.

Hi. Hi. And Mary's just, she's knackered, of course.

Because giving birth takes, it's a bit of energy. It's Yeah, I mean, it's like a really quite strenuous poo. Just is, for those who don't know, it's definitely can take a bit.

It's Yeah, be a little bit knackering. It's like having having a really long walk without socks, you know, like you think, Oh, I'll be fine. And you've got no socks on you think, Well, it's all right.

It's only I just walk a little bit further than normal. But then you start to realise that you're getting blisters. But then you kind of stuck because you can't, you can turn back.

But you're still gonna have as many blisters as you are, if you get to where you're going, and maybe get the bus back or get a taxi back. But at least if you continue going there, which is the same distance as if you walk back, you'll have the thing that you're walking to get. Yeah, maybe it's a paper or some milk.

But if you walk back, you wouldn't have the milk and you still have the blister. So it's kind of like him to work out because you know, not everyone can afford a camel. And why am I talking about this? So yeah, they're outside saying, you who, is there anyone there? And the there was not any noise, but there was a bit of like, whoo.

And baby Jesus, he wasn't crying, because of course, he's perfect. And he was peaceful, meditating. And they was it? Oh, yeah, Joseph, he said, What do you want? He was holding a pitched fork.

I've got yet. Joseph loved pitchforks that he just used to carry one around all the time. He had a thing for poo.

Not not weird thing. He just liked to move poo around and hay. So he was he'll he always carried a pitchfork, just in case you needed it to move some poo.

There's a lot of camel poo around back then. But no one dare mention it or moan about it because you know, the camels didn't like to be told off. So Joseph said, Who will go there? What do you want? And one of the wise people, men, persons, they said, Yeah, we'll come here to see to greet and to give gifts.

Oh, is it we come here to give to meet the Son of God? There's a baby here, isn't there? But as a baby born here? Joseph said, Maybe. What would you want? And they said, We've come to give gifts. And Joseph said, Yeah, come in.

Come in your gifts. How much money have you bought? And they said, and they started like kneel down. Oh, Son of God.

And Joseph's like, Wait a minute. You can leave money is fine. But we talk about the Son of God.

And that's where everyone looked at Mary and Mary, we looked a bit sheepish. No pun intended, because it was actually sheep in the barn. I mean, she was covered in fur.

And she said, she just looked pretended to be busy. It's hard to do that, really. Luckily, she, she had one of the word puzzle books.

So she like was just like, continue to do that. I think she was. I don't know if it's word search, or it might just be in a normal crossword.

I don't know. Anyway, that's not really relevant. And she just like, Oh, looks away.

Joseph's like, What's going on? Jermaine, the Son of God. Excuse me. I appreciate you coming and giving us gifts.

That's always nice. Especially as you know, look where we're staying. You believe when I wake up Christmas morning.

No Christmas tree, no presents. But now, you can have some presents. Could have bought a tree, but you didn't.

That's fine. It's okay. I'm not going to moan.

And but yes, but what's all this about? Son? He's the son of Joseph. He's my son. So you know, you can cut out all that stuff.

And they all looked at what's her name? Mary and Mary had to break it to him. So I'm sorry, sorry, my husband. But actually, I was impregnated by God.

And he isn't really your son. And Joseph looked at her. He said, Are you serious? He said, Yeah.

He said, Okay, then. So there was a little dance. Now what was weird about this story? That got me was it was it frankincense? Was it gold? Myrrh and frankincense? I didn't know.

I thought frankincense was some kind of I don't know, expensive thing. It was back then. But I didn't know what it was.

But then in 2003, I did a holistic therapy course, which part of the course was aromatherapy. And I discovered frankincense. And it is so good.

It's so nice. It smells gorgeous. And makes me happy just thinking about it.

Such a lovely smell. If you've never smelt frankincense, then it means you've never probably probably never sniffed it. But it's really nice.

It's really, really nice. I mean, I'm not a big fan of lavender. That's one of those smells.

I don't not really I don't dislike lavender. But frankincense is one of my favorite tea trees. Another one I like that that tea tree is more of a kind of a healing disinfectant kind of oil.

I really do like frankincense. Oh, yeah. So I didn't understand why they given him frankincense.

Because I thought is that is that something to do with Frankenstein? Which, you know, I was only 40 at the time. But yeah. So in Iceland, the Yule Lads, instead of Santa Claus, Icelandic children are visited by the 13 Yule Lads.

And they're called Jolasvinnor. And which is mischievous troll like figures. You want me to say it again? Jolasvinnor.

So they're mischievous troll like figures who leave gifts in shoes placed on window sills during the 13 nights before Christmas. mischievous troll like figures who leave gifts in shoes placed on window sills during the 13 nights before Christmas. It sounds a little bit scary.

And trolls do not have a good reputation in fairy tales today. You know, trolls under the bridge. And that's how we came up with toll bridges, wasn't it? They just took the way they are, because trolls used to demand money for people to cross the bridge.

And that's what toll bridges are, you have to pay to get over. Oh, mind you, if there was a slight chance of getting a gift, at 13 days leading up to Christmas, you'd put your shoes out on the window sill, wouldn't you? I would. In fact, I am going to do that.

Mind you, they could probably do with being outside because they smell. They don't, they don't. England.

Oh, it's about my old country. Christmas crackers. The popular Christmas cracker was invented in 1847 by Tom Smith, a London based confectioner.

That was the end. That was a full stop there. A London based confectioner.

Initially, they contained candies, but over time, evolved to include paper crowns, jokes, and small toys. I feel we should go back to sweets and chocolates. So, I remember my dad used to be so strict about Christmas hats from crackers.

Put your hat on. We're all wearing them. You wear yours.

I don't want to wear it. But I did. I wore it anyway.

I remember wearing two, just to prove my point. I've got two. Is that enough? Are you happy now? What about another one? I'll put another one on, shall I? Yeah.

Turn up one day. On Christmas, I just turned up with my Christmas hats already stuck to my head. 17 hats.

No one noticed. So, Germany. Advent calendars.

Oh, I didn't know this. The tradition of Advent calendars began in 19th century Germany. Families would mark the day of Advent by lighting candles or drawing chalk lines on doors.

Eventually, it evolved into today's chocolate filled calendars. Blimey. Isn't it weird the way things progress, or maybe not progress, but develop into something new? Into something that's been around my entire life.

Christmas crackers and Advent calendars. I never knew what they were for. I knew it was to build up to Christmas.

But it was, for me, when I was a kid, it was almost used in a sense to build up the excitement towards Christmas. And I do wonder, why can't we have an Advent all year calendar like that? Every year can be a build up and each door that you open is a better gift. So maybe you buy someone, it might cost a thousand pound, this calendar, but you know, someone has it on their wall and it starts off with a really just silly, you know, a small gift, like a little bit of chocolate.

And then the next day, you know, a joke or, you know, just like gradually builds up. And then on maybe Easter Day, you open it up. And it sort of says, search under, search inside the, what did that thing? You know, the toilets, the thing that holds the water in the toilet above the toilet, and you pull the lid up.

Is it Sistine? Is that what it's called? So search inside the toilet, the toilet bit. And you go in there, it's your Easter egg. It's it's been there for four months.

Yay. And it's already unwrapped. Lovely.

But I'm just thinking just nice gifts like that, and then building up and then on your birthday, or maybe pancake day, you go and a gift to go and eat pancakes at a local diner or I don't know where, depending on where you live in the world. If you celebrate pancake day, and then just different celebrations throughout the year. So whether it's bank holidays or half term if you're at school, or if it's your holiday, so you can, so if you've got a holiday booked, you can start getting excited towards your holiday and, you know, just just bits and bobs.

And then as you get to your birthday, a new bike, maybe. And it's just go and choose the bike you want. And it gets delivered to you.

Or maybe, yeah, I'm just thinking it's like just build it up. So then Christmas, and you get some frankincense, which should probably be an anticlimax for a lot of people. But for me, it'd be lovely.

As I've gotten into more detail, it doesn't sound like a very good idea now. I just think it's nice. I mean, from a psychological perspective, of course, but just it's nice to have things to be excited about.

I think. And I don't mean like, oh, I can't wait. That was my excited voice.

I actually did. I shook my hands in excitement. You can't see that.

But I did my feet stayed still, but my hands were like rattling, not rattling, but waving kind of side to side, almost like I was like I'd be too big. And I don't know, bits of dough and I was just, you know, rolling the dough around that kind of, but in the air, but it was nothing there, just my hands, just a bit like that. And so I just like I was making bread or bread rolls.

That's the thing I used to like about working in the bakery when I was a kid. I used to like playing with the dough. It was nice.

I used to like breaking the eggs as well. Because I learned how to break eggs, like one in each hand. I used to honestly hundreds of eggs because I get for a lot of eggs.

And so it's brilliant. My favorite thing in the world to my to my favorite things. Okay.

My three favorite things. The first one is to eat the cakes. That was my favorite thing.

But then second, I'm not sure which one I would put top out of these two. So one is to break the eggs. And literally be a bucket of eggs, like hundreds of eggs, a lot of eggs.

And the other one would be to fill the doughnuts, the round doughnuts with jam. In fact, not just that the whole frying. And they, you know, I could fry the doughnuts.

I knew how to do it. It's all about they, they're not in there for long. And you can see when they're ready.

And then put the let you have to let them dry for a little bit. Then you put the dough, the jam in and then you keep I think the last thing is you sprinkle them, roll them in some sugar. Sugar.

If I'm if I'm right, there might be another. Another part of it. I can't remember.

So there's those those were two favorite things really, but favorite my favorite thing was to carry the to eat. My boss used to put the cakes into trays. And would carry the trays out into the front of the restaurant to be then be put onto the display.

So we always used to just eat some cakes. No, I'm not talking lots, but probably have at least one or two. Every time, not every time I carried them, but I just had the odd one, you know, because there was hundreds being made.

I mean, yeah, maybe I should have done it. But they're so lovely. It smells so nice.

And I was hungry. I was hungry. I've been up since on a Saturday.

I don't know if it was six o'clock start on a Saturday and a five o'clock start on a Sunday, or the other way around. But either way, it was all the way to 12 o'clock. So I'd had my breakfast at either four o'clock or 430 in the morning, or 530 in the morning, because it was about 20 minute walk to the to the place.

It's basically just down the end of my road. Turn right that was it was very it wasn't a long walk. I just wonder sometimes how great would be to just re-experience that.

Not realizing that it was something that I'm never going to be able to re-experience or never really be able to fully grasp what it felt like, what I felt like to be there in that moment. The early 80s, wham, you know, wham on the radio, all the songs that were going on all the time in the early 80s, it was really big at the time. A lot of really big bands in the UK in the 80s.

And just, I suppose I always are, but there was particularly resurgence where we were, this country were kind of almost dominating the charts a little bit around the world, or at least participating. I don't know if domination would be the right word. But like Duran Duran, Ultravox, Wham, Samantha Fox.

What's my favorite Samantha Fox song? I want to feel your body, your heartbeat next to mine. Touch me, touch me now. I'll do the hand movement on that one as well.

So yeah, that's this, it's weird, isn't it? Just to think back to all these experiences that meant nothing to me at the time. Absolutely nothing. Now I think back to it and yeah, I can never, it's just weird.

Let's think about stuff like that. Anyway, what was I talking about? Okay, the next one is Japan. KFC for Christmas.

This is in Asia. Okay, Japan. So in Japan, Christmas isn't a traditional holiday, but eating KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken, on Christmas Eve has become a popular custom since the 1970s.

Thanks to a successful advertising campaign. Kentucky for Christmas, or in the actual language, Kurisumasu ni wa Kentucky. So Kentucky for Christmas.

That's a pretty good advertising if you can get people from a whole country to go to your takeaway, like as an annual, an annual thing, Christmas Eve. That's pretty cool, isn't it? Philippines. In the Philippines, the Giant Lantern Festival.

In San Fernando. That's a song, isn't it? San Fernando. Or maybe not.

Philippines. The Giant Lantern Festival, which is called Lingalan Balor Sambonabando, is held annually in December. The colourful lanterns symbolise the stars of Bethlehem and attract visitors from all over the world.

Wow, I imagine that'd be quite cool. I'm sure I saw something similar to that. There's a similar thing going on in West Jersey in America, but instead of the lanterns, it's drones, I think.

That's a new thing. So maybe that's the new thing we're having. We've got drones going up.

Just ban all drones. Just say all drones are banned between now and Christmas, or between now and the end of the year, all drones are boned, or all drones are banned. Did I say all banned are droned? All drones, ban them in your country, if there's a problem.

In this country as well, because they're causing problems here also. Just until the end of the year. A temporary ban, anything that goes in the sky will be removed from the sky.

You know, between now and Christmas, between now and New Year's, it's illegal to have a drone in the sky. That sounds like the beginning of a song. Just for a week and a half, or two weeks, whatever it is.

Yeah, two weeks, pretty much. Or 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 days, which is two weeks. Okay, nearly two weeks.

Because two weeks is 16 days, isn't it? So just have, that's what I'm thinking. Just obviously Christmas Eve, if you see something in the sky, it's Father Christmas, so let's not get too, you know, let's just calm down a bit. We don't want the Air Force getting involved with that one.

Because everybody needs their presents. If anyone doesn't know what Father Christmas is, that's Santa Claus. It's the same person.

It's just in this country, we used to call him Father Christmas when I was a kid. Now, but then you've got Santa's Grotto, which, so it's the same. Santa Claus, Father Christmas.

It's, you know, it's the same, it's the same person, just a different name. It's like the Grinch, it's just another name he uses. When he's in a mood.

China, I have the solutions. China, peace apples. I love anything with the word peace.

In China, apples wrapped in colourful paper are gifted on Christmas Eve, because the word for apple, ping-wa, sounds similar to the word for peace. So, cool. That's not anything to do with peace, I'm up for that.

Oh, squeaky chair. So, now we go to North and South America. Mexico, Las Posadas.

The nine days leading up to Christmas called Las Posadas, re-enact Joseph and Mary's search for shelter. And families hold processions, sing carols and break pinatas filled with treats. And I mean, in Mexico, there's a lot of desert in Mexico, so I suppose you could do that, because literally the terrain would be perhaps the same.

In fact, is that where Jesus was born in Mexico? I can't remember. There's a lot of, they do call Mexicans, it's well known, they call a lot of their babies Jesus, don't they? So maybe, we don't really do that in this country. The two names that are not really allowed, well maybe three, but generally you don't have young people walking around.

They say, what's their name? Oh, it's Gandhi, no. It's Elvis, no. It's Jesus, no.

We don't name our kids after really, there's only one Elvis. I mean, Oliver's arm is underway, and I would rather be anywhere else than here today. What a great song.

So, you know, can't moan about that, but you know, no one says Elvis and thinks of Elvis Costello. You say Elvis Costello. You say Elvis, it's Elvis.

He didn't need a surname, we did, I guess for tax reasons, but he, you know, Elvis, E, Elvis. So, someone said to me, correct me, no, I think you'll find it's, it's not, they don't call their kids Jesus, they call their kids Jesus. What does Jesus mean in Mexican? Jesus.

So, no, but you're wrong, because it's, it's not Mexican, it's Spanish. Okay, what does Jesus mean in Spanish? Let me Google it and find out, shall we? I'm not sure what it is. Let me find out.

I wonder. So, Jesus, meaning in Spanish, what is it? Well, it's spelled Jesus, isn't it? Just because they pronounce it like that. Jesus, G-E-S-U-S.

But we say it, no, it doesn't matter, it's still Jesus. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying that it's just, we don't do that in this here.

I mean, can you imagine how good it would be to be called Jesus? I think of some other religions, they, they use their religious named people, the high, you know, the high up in their religion, and name their kids that a lot in some religions. So, we just don't seem to do that in England. Maybe we should, bring it back.

Was there any other Jesuses though? Or was he the first one? I don't know. No other famous Jesuses, was there? I can't think of one. Think about it, if someone says, Oh, Jesus, even if you're not, if you're of a different religion, or no religion, you're going to kind of like, you're not going to think, Oh, did he, did he used to be a painter in the 18th century?

No one's going to think that.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, did he invent the railway lines? No, they're going to know exactly what it is. Oh, Jesus.

Oh, was he in Willard the Wisp? Was he one of the, was he a frog in Willard the Wisp? No, no. Do you know what I mean? Like, no. Merry Christmas.

USA, North and South America, USA. I didn't know USA was in South America. The first Christmas tree, the first recorded use of a Christmas tree in America was by German settlers in Pennsylvania in the 1830s.

It wasn't until Queen Victoria popularized the tree in England that it caught on widely in the United States. Oh, Colombia. So in Colombia, Christmas begins with Dia de las Velitas, which is Day of the Little Candles on December the 7th.

People light candles and lanterns in honour of the Virgin Mary filling streets and homes with light. Yep, she was a virgin. And so number four.

See, that's like, I love light. It's nice, isn't it? You know, in the streets, candles and we don't really do that here. Maybe it's because it's too windy.

Number four, Venezuali, Venezuela, rollerskating to church. Now that is something I understand, because apparently, Joseph, that's where Joseph and Mary met at a roller skating rink. Like, they met and they fell in love because they both had love for roller skating.

That's missing out of the story. No one mentions that. And in Caracas, Venezuela, it's a tradition for people to roller skate to early morning church services during the Christmas season.

Oh, dear. I've just got an image because my nan, she was a Catholic and she, she was looking down at me thinking, just tutting, like rolling her head and tutting. Not rolling her head, that'd be weird, rolling her eyes.

She's not the exorcist. To roller skate to early morning church services during Christmas. I just imagine her roller skating to church.

My nan is funny. Streets are even closed to traffic to accommodate skaters. That's quite an unusual thing.

How did you come up with that? How did they? I don't know. That's quite fascinating. Again, this might all be lies or non truths or part truths.

I don't know. I'm not fact checking any of it. Other interesting historical facts.

Jingle Bells in space. So in 1965, Jingle Bells, the song, it became the first Christmas song played in space. Astronauts aboard NASA's Gemini 6 performed it as a prank, pretending to spot Santa Claus.

Oh, the origin, I'm going to check to see if I can see that on YouTube. The origins of Santa Claus. So Santa Claus is based on St. Nicholas of Myra, a 14th century Greek bishop known for his generosity.

His feast day, December the 6th, inspired giving traditions across Europe. How cool is that? Vinnie's just let one go again. Oh, man.

Christmas was once banned. What? Christmas was once banned? Oh, I need some oxygen. Oh, bad.

That really smells bad. Christmas celebrations were banned in England by Puritans in 1647 under Oliver Cromwell, who viewed the festivities as frivolous and sinful. It was restored after the monarchy was reinstated.

That's why we need a monarchy. We don't want any of these knobs coming in and saying, no, get rid of all your traditions, especially nice traditions. Maybe get rid of some of the traditions, you know, of this country, like being racist and homophobic, those kind of traditions and sexist.

But, you know, the things like Christmas, keep that. Easter, keep that. Just because it's nice.

Pancake day. All of it, a lot of it's just pointless stuff, but it's just nice. Bank holidays, D-Day, V-Day, E-Day, B-Day, all the different days about the different wars we've had.

It's good for those people that like to do that, that like to celebrate those things. I say let's have days for Diwali and let's have holidays for, what's it called? Oh, well, every religion, basically. Every single religion, let's have a bank holiday for every single religion.

I'm up for that. I'll change my religion if I have to each month just so I can have a day off. I mean, technically, I don't need a day off, but, you know, yeah.

Ramadan, it needs to be more respect. I've known a lot of people that, you know, they partake in Ramadan and I've asked them questions about it. It's like, it's hard.

It's harder in the summer because the days are longer than in the winter because, well, the days are shorter, so they haven't got so long to go without eating. But blimey, it's, yeah. I had a conversation in August with someone who was driving me and he's saying he always loses weight when he does it, but it's just hard.

He said, I don't think they're even allowed to drink water, not supposed to. I think it depends upon your dietary needs. But in the summer, surely you need to drink water.

You need to just, you kind of need to have something, especially if you're driving, if you're working and stuff like that. Isn't that interesting? Christmas was banned in 1647. It just shows that extremism's been around a long time.

I mean, the whole Oliver Cromwell, oh man, some of the stuff I remember about that. That's extremism, just really. Leave Christmas alone.

So the oldest Christmas market, so the Strasbourg Christmas market in France, dating back to 1570. Wow, is considered the oldest in Europe. It still draws millions of visitors today with its festive stalls and lights.

See, I'd like to go and see that. That'd be cool. And then you've got the last fun fact on here.

Xmas isn't new. Okay, the abbreviation Xmas, for Christmas, which some people don't like, I've been, I've heard, I've been told, has been used since the 16th century. The X comes from the Greek letter, X, which is the first letter of Christmas, or the first letter of Christos, Christ in Greek.

It's not a modern shorthand. So X is basically, means Christ in Greek. X, Christos, Christ, the first letter of Christos.

So it's not a modern thing. It's been going on. So next time anyone says, I don't like it when people do that modern thing of X, say actually, it's not modern, it is actually 400, over 400 years old.

I'm trying to work it out. Should we see if there's any, any more, or is that enough? What's the time? Probably enough. My buttocks are going to sleep.

I wonder if, okay, try and find something. Let me have a look, see if there's anything. So, right, here's some news stories.

Santa, this is the headlines, Santa arrested after high speed sleigh chase. So Santa Claus allegedly borrowed a police horse for a festive joyride after leaving his sleigh in a parking lot. Wow.

Christmas tree survives family argument, not even one ornament broken. A miracle in a suburban family history. The tree made it through Aunt Lindsay's yearly meltdown.

So these are headlines in local newspapers. Reindeer breaks into supermarket, eats all the carrots. Wow.

Grinch steals Christmas lights and gets tangled in his own heist. A man dressed as the Grinch was caught red handed when his light theft plan spiraled into chaos. So he got caught in his own tangled in his own thing.

Not going into much detail. Town cancelled Santa parade after elf choir demands better wages. Oh, dear.

A man. Oh, really? This can't be true. A man wraps himself in tinsel, tinsel, gets stuck in his own Christmas.

It's stuck in his own Christmas tree. So he wraps himself in tinsel, and somehow managed to get stuck to his own Christmas tree. And mall Santa fired for asking kids for Bitcoin instead of cookies.

Okay. World's largest snowman collapses. Local children call it a snowpocalypse.

That's a joke, isn't it? Family mistakenly give grandma dog treats for Christmas. Wow, I can see how that could happen. I don't know about accidentally or mistakenly.

Toddler eats all the advent calendar chocolate on day one. That's got to happen a lot. I'm sure it does.

I used to do that. You'd open them and then put them back, close the doors again. So no one knew.

I'd never do it to my own. You know, I'd be like going around different rooms in the house. But the thing is, you don't do it.

So if you get the calendars, you don't do it on day two, or day three, you do it near the end, or like the last part of the month. And a good time to do it is Christmas Day. Or does Christmas Day have one? Is it on the 25th or just up to the 24th? Because then you can say like, oh, you must have already eaten it.

But I didn't eat it. But because they're in a good mood, because it's Christmas, they don't care. So, and they don't talk about it because they're busy opening presents.

So the fact is, I've gone around one, two, three, four, five, five people's advent calendars at the beginning of the month, eating their chocolate on the last day of the month of the Christmas, you know, calendar thing. And then close them up so you couldn't see that I'd had it. And no one seemed to care.

It's a great scam. Mum claims turkey tasted funny. Turns out it was still frozen.

Man sets fire to kitchen whilst trying to deep fry a Christmas pudding. That's not a good idea. Family's gingerbread house fails structural integrity test.

Oh dear. Vegetarian cousin accidentally eats three pigs in a blanket. It's easily done, you know.

I was a vegetarian. And I remember that I used to work in a gift shop. And next door to the gift shop, there was a sandwich shop.

And I'd go in there and cheese sandwiches got a little bit boring. And then one day I thought, I'll try something a bit different. Now, I ordered something else.

I didn't know at the time that salami was meat. I don't know what I thought it was. I just didn't know it was meat.

But it tasted nice. I thought it was some kind of like brown cheese or something. It's got one here.

Man dresses Santa gets stuck in chimney. I was just checking it for the kids. Oh, I got out though.

So Santa's sleighs. Santa's sleigh GPS malfunctions ends up in Bermuda triangle. That's not a real thing.

Come on. Drunk Santa rides inflatable reindeer into pool declares best Christmas ever. Santa's beer catches fire at Christmas party.

His beard Santa's beard catches fire at Christmas party. Kids scarred for life. What about Santa? Blimey.

And more Santa quits after too many kids asked for a better dad for Christmas. That wasn't a nice one. Next one holiday came chaos.

Family Christmas. Carolyn turns into loud argument over lyrics. Okay.

There are people out there that would actually they're so pedantic and have to be right. I'm one of them. And it's like, hey, nope.

It's and they have to correct this that that's how to sin. Those are the words. Even though you can literally show them and Google it and show them like I know what I believe and that's what I believe.

I had a friend that used to go go on about Carl Froch. And he just say to me it's Carl Froch. I said no it's not.

It's Carl Froch. And he'd like get angry. It's Carl Froch.

Like it's Carl Froch. He's a boxer. I said no it's Carl Froch.

I searched the internet until I found a video of him actually introducing himself as Carl Froch. It still wasn't enough. I said he introduces it.

It's his name. Like don't try and tell me my name is Newland if I pronounce it new land. Okay.

I understand that no one else in the world says new land but that's how I pronounce my name. Hey, calm down. Anyway, I'm gonna go now.

So I thank you for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy. Be gentle with yourself.

Lots of love. Bye. We wish you a Merry Christmas.

We wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Why are you making squeaky noises, Paul?