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Hello and welcome to Vinnie and me. This is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Vinnie's just, he was in bed.
We were both having a little lie down. I got up and came in here and now Vinnie's got up and he's just pushed the door open and come in and staring at me for some reason. Why are you staring at me for Vinnie? I had a little nap.
I've been tired all day because I got up at about half past one this morning to watch the boxing and that went on till about four, maybe half past four and then maybe five in fact. Then I went back to bed and haven't really, I haven't really got my sleep back as it were. I haven't really, yeah, it's been a bit, a little bit tired but I'm better now.
I'll stop yawning. Good. I'll stop in a minute, don't worry.
My yawns will be completed at some point. So this is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes and today is Sunday the 15th of June, two thousand and twenty five.
I haven't really necessarily, particularly accomplished much today. I'm just trying to think what have I done. I had a shower and did a bit of work on the website, a little bit of work on the podcasts.
Or did a new thing, a new thing. I put together all of the last seven days Let Me Bore You To Sleep podcast episodes into just one recording. So I've done that today and the problem with that is I had to put Whisper Wednesday last because I couldn't really have the Whisper Wednesday and then going back to talking a kind of normal volume is yeah it just didn't work so I had to I put that at the end of the recording and so yeah I'm thinking of maybe doing that again next week so basically it's Sunday to Saturday and I do it on the Sunday so it's those seven days.
Hi Vinnie. Vinnie's here in some summer in the garden and he's very interested. Wow I'm such a yawny head.
I remember I got a message years ago someone saying I don't like it when you yawn. I thought wow. Just I don't like it when you well nobody and I do mean nobody on the planet can tell me off for yawning.
I don't if I yawn I yawn. I don't like it when you yawn. Who cares? I don't care if you like it or not.
I'm not yawning to make people feel wonderful or to make people feel anything just yawning because I'm yawning. It's no uh hello. I'm yawning because I'm tired.
I'm yawning because I'm thinking about yawning and I'm probably yawning because I'm trying not to yawn which is causing me to yawn even more. Yes. Sniffy sniff.
I was wondering if I've got a little bit of uh I get a little bit of hay fever these days because I've had a few a few days a few times maybe not the whole day but where I just seem to come down with a cold but then then it's gone. I'm sniffling coughing sneezing and then you know nothing. So I don't maybe that maybe maybe I am a little bit affected by the pollen perhaps uh I do live in the countryside so there's no getting away from it really is this is it's non-stop it's non-stop pollen I imagine yeah around here.
But yeah yeah it's not it's not debilitating so I don't it's not gonna bother me. It's just weird I just get a little bit a bit sniffly. That's why I'm not a sniff.
I keep sniffing because that's grim. I remember when I was in the call center um I think it was the the last call center I worked in. I had this bloke on the phone and he was sniffing.
I think he had a like full-on cold it almost sounded like the phone was up his nose. Seriously like he put the end of the phone up his nose and all I could hear and it was just I did not enjoy that phone call. You can't shout through the phone can you please blow your nose before we continue.
I mean you could include that in the script but probably get sacked. You know the script that you say at the beginning all calls are recorded I remember when I did that I first because I worked at Churchill until September 2001. I think it was the the ninth I'm not sure I don't have my calendar but anyway it was the Monday and whatever the Monday was that week and it was pretty easy.
I didn't realize how easy it was until it started getting more difficult because we just asked the questions that was it and then about six months seven months in they walked around and handed us a script and they said you're gonna have to read or team leader said you have to read this out to the customer right at the beginning of the call before proceeding with a car quotation.
You have to read the whole thing out it was just one page but it was a good 30 seconds of talking and it was laminated I think so I remember I used to twiddle with it and flick it around so it turned around in my hand and I thought it might impress some of the girls oh well was I so I was nine at the time you see I remember sort of looking at it and thinking you know when the team leader said oh yeah you have to read this big
long script out before before and then it goes another script you have to read this out and before taking payment and you also have to read this script out before you know before the end of the call I was really talking about Willis and my team leader took me aside and said stop calling me Willis he didn't know what the reference was from because he was he was about uh I think he was about 11 my team leader I was what 31 so he was a little bit younger than me
what are you talking about Willis and he didn't he didn't get the reference a lot of people won't get the reference it doesn't matter because um it all it does is make me look really old it's really old referencing something from the late 70s wow I pity the fool different person sounds similar when I do it but I pity the fool there's the other one I can't remember oh I love it when uh I love it when a plane comes together that was him smoking a cigar yeah the A-Team that
was such a huge show it's weird I mean are there any big TV shows now on television I don't mean popular but are there any shows which are just caught the imagination of the population of the western world in a sense of action figures and books comics easter eggs with pictures of it on and you know the the toy the toy the main toy for Christmas that year is this thing I mean I don't know I'm I suppose Peppa Pig that's one thing that was pretty huge on it SpongeBob SpongePants
was a big character wasn't he Simpsons but we're going back like quite a few years I remember the Simpsons right I remember watching it and then after a few years of watching it it's it became for some reason it became really popular it's almost like it was around for a while and then the newspapers noticed it and it was put on you know they the newspapers thought it was for kids and it's not a kid show at all never was a kid show it's an adult show it's adult humor yet
it was put on in this country like six o'clock in the afternoon and the press were all focusing on Bart Simpson and eat my shorts and all this stuff and as soon as plastered everywhere when Bart Simpson is not the star of the show his dad is and it's just really strange the way they interpreted it I mean he's a star but he's not the star Homer is he is the the king of that show and Marge is the queen but it's about it's about Homer Simpson isn't it do you
know anyone now that says oh oh oh like that they still do that do you know anyone that still does that I used to know people that did that and they do it and they did it for decades and I didn't know why I knew why I knew it was you know because Homer Simpson goes oh don't oh no doe isn't it don't don't whatever and but I didn't kind of understand why humans were doing it does anyone know anyone who does that because I've known people I had someone the
other day said they said lol to me now I like really like this person so I'm not going to say anything bad or just uh the other another person said it to me years ago I liked like that person as well so but I just found it like what lol not didn't laugh they just went lol I was like okay I can't keep up I can't keep up I'll tell you what's needed oh squeakies in the garden I'll tell you what's needed is I think the old people the old ones
the oldens need to start doing their own language put together their own sayings their own little coded chat yeah just to confuse the the youngins oh we just can continue to confuse the youngins by talking how we've always talked this is sometimes if it feels like a different language a different language I'm sounding ancient and I like a like a dusty old it's got to say dummy but not dummy not model dummy is it a dummy the dummy the other thing wrapped up in in bandages mummy not dummy mummy it's
mummy you dummy mummy why would you call it mummy oh by the way happy father's day if you if you celebrate such a thing in the in UK England Britain we have mother's day and father's day but some other countries also celebrate it have it on a different date so mother's day was ages ago and father's day in the UK is today so yeah happy fat has happy father's day wherever you may be yeah never received a father's day card never never I haven't been a father have I father father
sorry father I wonder what that's like to actually be a parent I guess I'm never gonna know am I but can you just imagine I know a lot of people listen to this for parents they know exactly what it's like but I don't really don't I can't I can't really get my head around it it's a little bit like what's it like to be a goldfish I don't know goldfish no but I don't know what's it like to be six foot seven I'm never gonna know what it feels like to
be six foot seven and even if I wore stilts to make myself at that height you know there's limits to what I can do I can't like spend my whole life with those stilts on supermarkets for example yeah they have an issue with stilts I've never understood that they try and go into Sainsbury's or Tesco's in this country which is a grocery supermarket oh can you please take the stilts off sir but they don't stop anyone it's actually naturally six foot seven I don't check them for stilts check me that's
a thing right if you're gonna wear stilts don't wear shorts that's a problem you need to get extra long trousers so it looks and you need to sort of get some kind of so it looks like you've got feet to the stilts on because otherwise it don't work it was just like wooden pegs because I'm I'm sure you can get stilts to arm wood but I'm I'm sticking to the old-fashioned stilts I used to have stilts when I was a kid we used to make stilts it used to be fun
I don't think I've ever been on a professional stilt is there such a thing as a professional stilt and a pogo stick wouldn't that be quite a good way to actually travel it'd be a much faster way wouldn't it and potentially more fun you're like a really good pogo stick one that I'm not saying one that bounces really high but bounces a maybe mechanical bounce you know so you don't have to do anything you just land and it just pushes you up um and at a height that it wouldn't matter
if you fell you can be fine so maybe a height of two feet or three feet so you're always going to be you know health and safety it's important that's what I wear where I wear it no I said that last time so stilts I started listening to some of my old recordings I can't believe some of the things I say wow honestly some of the things that slip out of my bum now my mouth is ridiculous it's just so silly and the other day you might not heard it I
was talking about the different pronunciations in America and England so there's like David Bowie I mean I know he's not American but it was like is it Bowie is it Bowie no one cared even he didn't care it's Bowie no it's Bowie I actually as a kid saw people get into an argument like a proper you know emotional argument over how to pronounce David Bowie's name there can't be I can't imagine there's anything less important to anyone except David Bowie or David Bowie and I think I was talking about like
the soaps because we used to say well there was an argument in much it wasn't like a big argument but it was definitely a heated discussion because in the early 80s very early 80s there was like so many soap operas from America that were coming over and unlike the soaps here which would be on regularly so Coronation Street would be on I think back then probably twice a week it increased over the years maybe three times a week but it was on quite regularly EastEnders hadn't started yet Emmerdale Farm was
on a few times a week I think Coronation Street I'm not that might still been on a few times a week maybe every night but these American soaps were oh we got to see them once a week and they were huge and compared to because ours were just grotty we all just had really grotty kind of dull grey soaps a bit like the country can be a bit like that you know in this country quite grey and I said that the other day it's still lovely but it's a very you
know it's not the most colourful place at times I mean there's months and months where it's just grey it's just what is going on and Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm which is based on a farm that was never going to be very particularly colourful Coronation Street was based in these just old-fashioned streets and Emmerdale I was at Coronation Crossroads was based in a motel I liked I like Crossroads we used to have actually a hospital hospital hospital it was a soap but it was about nurses in a hospital maybe doctors
general was it general hospital I'm pretty sure it was English general hospital and I can't believe that I remember I just had a memory that I have not had for years and years and years and years and years and it's when I lived in Newcastle general hospital was on and I think I was running downstairs downstairs to you know what we could see a hospital from our I'm pretty sure from the from the flats that I lived in there was a big high-rise flat block of flats I could see the
hospital I'm sure I could I just got these little memories of the hospital and the TV show though and where I lived at the time and I used to watch it wow there was a bloke on there with a beard with a moustache yeah he had a moustache and a white coat I don't remember the tune the you know the the theme tune welcome to general hospital we are a hospital and we are general I don't know don't know what the theme tune was I can't really think of any other
soaps in the early 80s that was on that I used to watch I mean in the middle 80s we got all the well we got like a lot of the Australian soaps so Neighbours which was a massive hit and then Home and Away which was also a massive hit and then I think then Prison Cell Block H I'm not sure when that came out I know I used to watch it when I was probably about 16 17 and probably 16 I used to watch Prisoner Cell Block H but it used
to be on late at night and B was the the the one in charge B white B and Mrs Mangle she was in Neighbours Henry Bishop was in Home and Away wow but you know what the one Australian soap that I personally think was the best out of all of them and never got its credit because it wasn't on at peak time it used to be on in the afternoons I don't know when they they first started showing it but I think it'd been around a long time I got completely
addicted to it in 1986 and it's called Sons and Daughters now that show it was on every day it knew I think it was every day anyway it knew how to do a cliffhanger it did the best cliffhangers like the I can't think of anything bearing in mind I was a proper TV buff back then you know TV and books and when I got to about 12 you know but generally TV and books was kind of my favourite thing yeah Doctor Who used to have good cliffhangers but what I noticed happened even like the A-Team or um it's kind of obvious that I don't know like a TV show that was let's say it was the A-Team or Wonder Woman.
Wonder Woman was trapped inside a I don't know a chocolate chocolate box covered in cream but it was see-through so you could watch her get changed no no sorry no um I'm just saying that it was that was and she couldn't get out of it but she the only way she could get out of it is by getting tried on lots of different costumes see I was a kid this is what I used to think about back then not now that's just wrong I wouldn't think about that but I was
I was young and uh childish so she'd be in this chocolate see-through box and trying on various 90s I don't know why but um stuff like that just makes you feel ill just like uh just just cover up that's that's how I feel now but you know I was I was a teenager I was well I was what 10 whatever so 11 10 9 I loved Wonder Woman but now I'm just like god that is so gratuitous and it's like really you know what about equal rights people but back then
I loved seeing her bounce around not now I've seen it recently and I'm just disgusted that that used to be on television for the the populace to look at that that tv show was on television not that as in her that but the tv show and I think they really took advantage of her good nature and getting her running around in that skimpy Wonder Woman costume um I feel I need to open the window it seems to be getting hot in here uh what was I talking about erection no no
um sons and daughters yeah oh they all look at that oh oh the way they used to leave it cliffhangers cliffhangers amazing now Doctor Who used to be really good at that but I noticed like I don't know when it started happening not just Doctor Who but even other tv shows something happened where they would I don't know some example I was doing that was like so Wonder Woman let's just think of a scenario so Wonder Woman's in this um this steel cage but it's see-through again well there's a big
x-ray machine so you can see through the steel no stop that so Wonder Woman is she's chained by her ankles and she's hanging upside down and there is um there's an animal on the floor I no one knows what the animal is because no one can remember because no one's looking at the animal but you know she's in danger imminent danger and like do do do do do do do do do and like will she will Wonder Woman survive will Wonder Woman succumb to this imminent threat will anyone be able
to will anyone be able to tell us what the animal was that was on the floor you know so all week long I'll be waiting I mean I wouldn't just literally just be sitting there waiting in front of the tv for a whole week till the next Saturday because unfortunately the schooling system we have here does not account for that doesn't take consideration for the important television programs and then I go back the next week and I'd wait I didn't go back I'd be there because that's where I lived but
I'd be not in that cage with an x-ray so you could see through it no what I mean is at home and we'd all be there we'd all be there for different reasons watching it and my older brothers would I think my oldest brother would watch it for a little while then he'd leave and then he'd come back and then my other brother would leave and come back I don't know what they were doing they just seemed to be it's almost like they were taking turns I think they must have
had a had bad stomachs or something he didn't have that toilet and then my dad's moaning where's the toilet roll gone where's it all gone well I don't know I'm watching Wonder Woman and I need toilet roll we all need something don't we I need to be able to watch Wonder Woman in peace is what I thought to myself I'm not gonna be saying it out loud and you'd see her escape so she'd sort of wobble not wobble but like move from side to side and manage to I mean the
abdominal strength that she must have had to do that to be able to lift herself up and from that angle and until get back and like break the chains but climb up so that she didn't land um whatever I don't know what the animal it could have been a shark I don't know could have been a hedgehog I don't know what the hell it was on the floor that she didn't want to land on and yeah she escaped I mean she'd been there for I mean I was young but I
like I was thinking she's been there a week why has no one gotten a sort of a cup of tea and a donut or something she's been there because there was nothing on her face she wasn't the face wasn't covered in anything like you think is if she was eating upside down your face would like sugar on and all kinds of stuff wouldn't it because I'm not messy anyway when I eat it goes all down my top trying to even try to eat upside down it's it's practically impossible but if
you was upside down for a week you kind of have to wouldn't you learn have to learn how to but there was no mess she looked exactly the same as she did a week ago which is pretty amazing I know she's a superhero and everything but it was yeah couldn't really get my head around that but you know I was I was seven years old don't don't blame me wow it's not my fault I didn't write this script I didn't I didn't I didn't direct it I didn't I didn't know
I thought it was real I thought it was a documentary I waited all week for that so I went and like and she escaped then that was exciting all week waiting to find out if Wonder Woman escaped from that being you know chained upside down in a some kind of box see-through box or something I don't know whatever it was no it's in a warehouse it was in a warehouse or was she in a tree I remember when she she spun around she turned into a what was it like a
swimmer I mean she also had an invisible plane that was funny I don't know even I found that a bit funny it's an invisible plane yeah she wasn't invisible I mean you could argue it's Wonder Woman she wasn't the invisible Wonder Woman she was Wonder Woman however if if you're an invisible plane it doesn't really make sense if you can be seen does it oh there's there's it's fine it sounds like a plane but I can't see anything can't you see Wonder Woman there sitting in the clouds oh yeah what's
she sitting on I don't know it's making a noise whatever's in between it's it's noise it's a plane it sounds like a plane it's a big plane it's a plane but it's invisible it can't be a plane what else would vibrate like that it's a plane I don't know if it's a plane it's got to be must be invisible yeah that's that's what it is it's an invisible plane you think it'd make her invisible though wouldn't you that's what I'm trying to point out Wonder Woman Wonder Woman that was my
favorite TV show I probably preferred Wonder Woman over the Hulk although I did love the Hulk as well and the six million dollar man or the bionic man who else Kung Fu he was a superhero and Batman of course but the Batmans were from the 60s and I was watching them in the 80s although it's still great they still are great even now I think the original Batman shows they're funny I don't ever remember seeing Superman TV shows until Lewis and Clark in the 90s was it Lewis and Clark yeah
Lewis and Clark that was huge hugely successful in this country that was peak viewing time on a Saturday night but now Doctor Who and a lot of shows for the last 20 odd years or even more maybe they'd have a cliffhanger and then they'd say next week tune in next week so you got Doctor Who in a cage you know in a in a box and I don't know trapped and then so what's it what's going to happen as he is a Dalek there's a Dalek oh a Dalek eating a
sandwich or whatever and and then oh no the squirrel's gonna get him or is it a Dalek gonna get him first or the squirrel there's there's a crazy squirrel a baseball bat and then they say tune in next week and they show you him sort of in a hammock eating some watermelon and with playing a harpsichord or whatever it's like not at the same time but it's like well clearly he escaped it's not much of a cliffhanger if you tell us not just tell us but show us show us show
us show us that Doctor Who escaped dear Jason I just want to point out firstly I think the way you were talking about Wonder Woman was wrong secondly I think that you need to know that it's not Doctor Who it's the Doctor and secondly the way you were talking about your brothers going out and taking turns in the bathroom or into the toilet well dear Jason so yeah I um oh yeah this is what I was talking about I just came up with something really silly the other day so the
whole thing about is it dynasty or is it dynasty so basically we were arguing about how to pronounce certain words it started off with David Bowie so David Bowie or David Bowie Bowie or Bowie I think there was someone else I can't remember what's the other name there was other names that were weren't sure I mean there was a time when we didn't know yeah when I was in Wales Boy George or Culture Club you know Culture Club were big big like just come out and they were huge and they
were even in the A-Team so yes a bit of a bit of nostalgia there what Culture Club was in the A-Team yes they were and I remember sitting around outside the tent in Wales we were all discussing whether or not Boy George was actually a woman or a man Boy George whether or not he was a woman or a man because he wore a dress and we're having this conversation looks like a woman not one person said but his name's Boy George there's a clue there's a clue somewhere I mean
it might be quite cryptic it's yeah I love Boy George Culture Club was great see it's in the title without conviction I'm a man who doesn't know I mean it there was evidence but I think we just used to argue about anything for no reason that was it always had to be an argument so there's four brothers and parents and it was just kind of okay one of the kids was tiny so he wasn't that involved but he did get involved after as soon as he could talk he was arguing
causing trouble and a proper troublemaker always arguing in the end I just used to just like oh I'm kind of bothered with this why are you arguing and then let's start and then like let's start another argument we're not arguing that's the whole fear of never seeing in Big Brother this woman saying um oh yes he said you seem so angry I'm not angry I'm passionate okay okay okay that's the whole thing is how do you how do you make an angry person angry tell them they're angry wow I'm not
angry I'm passionate I'm not hungry give me some food um oh yeah so the argument was or the discussion but it was an argument is it dynasty or dynasty dynasty or dynasty so half of my family said it's dynasty the other half was saying it's dynasty because it was pronounced I think different in America whether and this is what I was talking about this the other day in a podcast and because I wanted to contribute and we're already talking about David Bowie David Bowie or David Bowie and I shouted out
what about Dallas and everyone just stopped and looked at me I said I said what do you mean so how do you say that how do you pronounce that one I really thought I was contributing something to the to the argument but just gave me the giggles when I thought about it the other day it's such a silly thing to say in it what about Dallas oh it's not as funny now but it was back then it felt funny it was just I do like absurd absurdness I do I don't
know why just tickles me a little bit just um just really silly things it makes me laugh so I did that yeah put that podcast together with all the recordings from last week or the last seven days just to Let Me Bore You To Sleep ones or lmb yts lmb yts Let Me Bore You To Sleep yeah lmb yts um I wanted to make a recording earlier but I just couldn't do it I wouldn't have been able to do it without falling asleep my voice is all deep now all deep
I have to do that every time I every time I got a croak on I have to cry and try and do the old I would bow a new world and start rolling rolling rolling keep that wagon rolling rolling rolling roar hard yeah I sometimes feel that I'm in the middle of so almost like the end of an era the beginning of an era at the end of that era and then the beginning of another era it might just be because I've lived so long but it's like the end of
the 70s seemed to give way to kind of a new period the music was quite different the world seemed quite different that's probably more to do with you know I was getting older but the 70s when I think of the 70s I think of a very very um um grey very I just yeah just I just remember a lot of the strikes and all that stuff and it was yeah this didn't seem great some people love the 70s so I was a kid so I didn't get to really experience the
70s in sort of an amazing way um but the 80s seemed different then there was the 90s so for me my my years in a way were the 80s and 90s so you know from 10 to 30 because the 20s are quite I would say important period isn't it and that period of going through teenage years and manoeuvring the whole kind of leaving school getting a job perhaps having a a relationship of some kind and finding somewhere to live and you know paying rent and all that stuff maybe for the
first time it was yeah it was interesting it wasn't interesting at all actually I don't know why I said the word interesting but it can be I guess an interesting period for some people no I was never a big fan of paying rent I'll be honest I'll just yeah once I was um once I got my flat above the chip shop when I was 16 once I moved in there paying 40 pound a week I had 47 pound a week coming in that's how much money I was earning a week
so I was paying 40 pound out of that for the rent so you know it was I was actually better off financially better off when I had a paper round when I was living at home and had a paper round I had more money in my pocket than I had when I was working full-time and I was doing six days a week as well well even as you know but you know six different days I had Sunday off and it was weird it's like it's really strange to think that some
of the people I worked with there would be now pensioners some of them were probably had a good sort of I don't know six seven years on me maybe they were 20 60 probably about five years maybe six years so 22 so they'll be in their 60s and some of the waitresses that were maybe a year or so younger than me so they'll be kind of my age now possibly had like loads of kids maybe maybe not didn't really keep keep in contact with them really I think one of them
had quite a few kids and didn't have waiters there it was like a chip shop restaurant there was a restaurant there and there wasn't a lot of tables but it was definitely it was a good size to make money they were definitely making money and they'd have coaches coach trips or pensioners come and eat in there on a thing a Tuesday and a Thursday because it was a seaside place so even in the winter people coaches would come down from I don't know London maybe or Essex or different parts around
the area they come down and go and eat in a restaurant or go for a walk on the beach or on a promenade you know yeah and I think there was an OAP discount can you hear all that screaming in the garden again wow I can't I can't escape it unfortunately it's just I think it might just be a little with an echoey area so maybe they're not shouting all the time maybe they're talking just normal normal kind of volume but it's just echoing I mean I don't know how else
to say it maybe it's just like magnified in itself it's possible that's not what's happening but it's possible it might be it might be hmm yeah and it's strange thinking about people that even my karate instructor I think he's now in his 70s that I had when I was at school so when I was what 14 15 he was a good 20 years older than me or maybe 50 series it was maybe he was 30 yeah maybe so he's so we're about 70 now it might be a little bit it
might have been early 30s but he was he was a fully grown adult he wasn't in his 20s anyway it could have been 29 but I would probably say it was about 30 at the time so yeah it'd be 70 he was one of my heroes I had heroes I never told them you can't you can't really walk up to someone say you're my hero bye you know it's just it's a bit weird isn't it but he was one of my heroes he was my karate instructor and you know I've
had heroes that were famous and like Bruce Lee and boxers that I've seen like Frank Bruno and you know when I was a kid TV characters Wonder Woman and you know they were heroes but then he was like a real life person that I looked up to I had no choice it was about six for six but you know he I looked up to him as a as a I don't know about a role model because I had no idea what kind of life he led but I just really liked
him and there was there was another in struck way but he was a brown belt this other person he became a black belt shortly I think after I left school or just before I left school and I really looked up to him yeah he was he was definitely a black belt before I left school so I think he probably got his black belt when I was about 15 14 maybe not my instructor the main instructor was already like a second belt second I think he got his black belt in the
70s yeah I think he got his black belt in the 70s I could look it up I can actually look up this information if I wanted and but I'm sitting down so I can't be bothered and it's so nice to not be looking at a computer screen oh oh it's lovely just means I can't fact check any of my lies never mind what other people did I was I did I look up to um real life people I mean there were real life people but you're not people that I knew
there were and when I was in my 20s there was comedians I looked up to that I mean there's loads that were just brilliant comedians so not all of them liked me or I say like me I don't know if any of them like me but not all of them gave me acknowledged my existence as it were but some did and they're the ones that respect most because you know Alan Davis Harry Hill people like Lee Mack other ones that Lee Mack wasn't early 90s but he but all these people
that kind of went on to have TV careers and they were they were friendly to me I used to get on very well with Tim Vine who went on to do a lot of TV work and I kind of had a little bit at different periods so when I was performing I got to know kind of got to know everyone on the circuit all the promoters the club owners you know and all the comedians the ones that were successful the ones that were just plodding by and were happy to just
do a few gigs a month and maybe get paid for it and others that were aiming for bigger things some that were on the way to being famous some that were already famous but still tipping their toes dipping their toes into the comedy scene maybe do a few gigs here and there just to you know practice some new material for an upcoming tour or something like that you know and then there was ones that were new like myself who just starting out didn't know what they were doing and then out
of those new ones there was those that went on to be famous and they were good almost straight away I wasn't in that category I was I was I probably classed as a newbie the whole time I was doing it really yeah but so I had that eight years of being around comedians I can't I can't even imagine how many performances stand-up comedy performances I saw during that period in fact the only people that would have seen as many stand-up performances as I have as many probably and also maybe a
lot more as well but the only people that would have seen the amount of performances of stand-up comedy as myself are those that either perform perform comedy or are involved in it let's say they run a club that that's the only people that would have seen as much comedy as me during that time I guess I suppose if someone went to comedy twice a week since 1990 then they'd have seen more comedy than me because that's what like 30-odd years isn't it 30 years of yeah so they'd have seen more
comedy than me but I'm sure as an average person that maybe goes to see comedy once a week that's an avid fan someone that goes to see a comedy show once a week is a big comedy fan but I used to go multiple times a week but you know I was trying to learn to do it and then so I had some people I was friends with a lot of the open acts the new people and then when I was doing some DJing in a comedy club I became friends with
the comedians the ones that were getting paid the really you know the good ones those not that the ones that weren't getting paid much weren't good but the established you know and so many of them went on to do TV work and got their own some of them became really famous like Jimmy Carr I saw him for years and years and years he was almost like the regular compare at this comedy club and then he became he started doing TV stuff and then he was headlining I mean he he was
successful very quickly and still is so I used to see him also he's his management was my friend well two friends my friend and the a lady who she still manages him but my friend also managed him because they did it with a comedy club so it was as a Jimmy Carr's manager was my friend just for I don't know how many years a few years and if you don't if he's now with Chambers management and so I used to know her Hannah Chambers I used to know her haven't seen
her for donkeys and zebras and a long time the last time I saw her was wow long time ago decades decades and decades and decades I always got on with her I always liked her I always got on with her decades ago decades and decades it's really weird she got herself an assistant and I used to still go up to London to visit and stuff and I couldn't believe it I walked into the office because she was still working from the above the comedy club because where the agency was based
and there was a female there it was just like a younger version of her not related but honestly same characteristics looked very similar same same hair curly curly hair it's like same build of body is like if you you can't be related surely surely actually like your younger sister or something wasn't no relationship no no like blood related relatives relatives it's just like that was just one of those weird moments like wow wow just remember that don't know if you can hear the out there so what was I talking about
oh yeah but why was I talking about gigs comedy gigs I don't know it's kind of weird how many of what did who did I see oh I saw a comedian he was always older than anyway but not not by a huge amount and I saw him on a this particular comedian he's been on tv loads and he's had a really good career and I saw him on some game show you know question quiz show thing like celebrity version I was like just looks so old now I mean he is
but it's like wow he's just I just remember what he looked like in the early 90s and no one looks the same as I did in the early 90s and they shouldn't either if you find someone that looks the same as it did in the early 90s call the police there's something going on I remember Steve Coogan I never knew I never never spoke to Steve Coogan he was already pretty much a big shot long before I was even on the scene he was I think he was doing voiceovers for
spitting image and he was he was already really successful he wasn't like famous yet but he was on his way and to me Steve Coogan's probably the the Alan Partridge character is the best comedy character I think for me personally I think it's the best comedy character ever created and there's been there's been so many I mean Bill Coe's one isn't it just for example but Borat Inspector Clouseau Inspector Clouseau I mean I don't compare any of them with each other but what what he's done is the substance he's added
and the fact that he's been doing the same character since for 35 odd years is phenomenal it is something almost unrivaled I would say I mean there's there's some people what was Dame Edna Everidge so she was um that was a character in and she was probably doing that for like 40 odd years if not more well he was doing that for 40 odd years but I can't and Lily Savage but Lily Savage well both of them are no longer here are they Lily Savage isn't it weird it's not weird
but Lily Savage never really wasn't really my thing didn't really I don't know what it was because I know it was a character and that's what he became famous for and you know I think he won a perrier for it in the early 90s and what I like though is when he just was himself and he did a tv show during the day and it was such a good show he's it was funny it was it was just I don't know he was almost like the perfect tv host it was
so good he loved dogs and I can't remember his name now O'Dowd isn't it something O'Leary not Dermot O'Leary um um did I say his name this is is from Liverpool what was his I can't remember what the the female name was now that's terrible isn't it but he was so good I really liked him a lot um just I never got to see the performance on stage of him doing his act like his comedy act because he was pretty much already famous or on his way to being famous he
was already doing shows like touring and stuff like that before I had even arrived you know he was big pretty much straight away not straight away but he was popular um O'Leary I can't think Lee Mack who's very well known in this country he once said to me that he liked my act so there he might just been saying it just to be kind but he said it this was in 1997 or 8 98 probably 97 98 one of them and I said thank you I said you're not too bad
I reckon if you keep going you might be able to get some paid gigs now he's uh probably one of the most famous comedians in the country actually Lee Mack he's had a great career very quick now I know because he told me his biggest hero was Tim Vine who I also knew because I started at the same time as Tim Vine and Tim went on to be he he's always so this is something that this is trivia this is a trivia Tuesday thing when Channel 5 launched in I think
it was 1997 could it be 96 but I think it was 97 like beginning of the year ish yeah I think it was 97 1997 Tim Vine was the face of the new channel now bearing in mind we only had four channels BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4 we'd had Channel 4 since probably about 1982 so before that you know three channels so in a country that only has four channels a fifth channel is a big deal and it was huge publicity so when Channel 5 launched Tim Vine launched it
not just on his own but he was the face of Tim of Channel 5 in the same way that Jimmy Carr became the face of Channel 4 although Channel 4 was already established but Jimmy Carr was like he was on lots of different things Tim Vine was on lots of different things on Channel 5 he had I think at least two game shows and some other stuff so he was flying proper flying which was great I think the last time I saw him was about 1999 yeah oh yeah so why
am I mentioning him what's his name Lee Mack absolutely Lee like his hero his comedy hero was Tim Vine and he wanted to be like Tim Vine but he was never going to be like Tim Vine because he just had a different act but I think they enjoyed the puns because Tim Vine was kind of the king of puns and and I think he held the world record for the most jokes told in a specific amount of time he's like quick fire jokes bang bang bang bang bang like really but
he was yeah he I used to see him I remember what's his weird right so Tim Vine went on really you know he had a really good career and he did work with Lee Mack they worked together a couple of times actually I think they had a really called a stand-up show and then they did another one not going out so he was in he's worked with they both worked together two things I remember about Tim Vine right it's weird I'm just talking about I'm talking about people that you might
not have ever heard of especially if you're not maybe from this country but you might want to google it at some point google him or them the different comedians I've mentioned so the first time I saw Tim Vine was an open act evening and he got laughs but the comedians were not happy because he was doing he did some old jokes um what's his name just like that that comedian he did so he did some old jokes and some of the comedians have been really vicious to him or about him
rather and it was it was his first time on stage like come on maybe he's not his very first time but his first sort of thing and he went away and he came back with his own stuff but Tommy Cooper that's it but they didn't realize what he was doing it was he was he showed that he had star ability that he had to be able to stand in front of an audience talking into a camera a microphone is it might not be quite as easy as it looks I'm just
going to say that a lot there's a lot of people would not just can't do it wouldn't never even attempt it so he obviously showed that he had the he had the bottle to do it and then he went away and he came back and he started getting good and yeah three I got no two memories of him after that I remember once he said to me he was in the comedy club and he said the comedy store are gonna give me some gigs I've got an interview with them to
do a gig there and I told them that I've decided because he was I think he was still working while he was doing a comedy at this point he had a job and he said I'm going to give up my job I can hear his voice now they say I'm going to give up my job and I want to do comedy full-time and I want to put everything into it and I will be successful and he said to me that's what he told the person at the comedy store the owner
of the comedy store and he did and he did and he was another memory I've had with him and this was probably before that conversation we both did it we both did this gig together it was a middle of nowhere it really was right in the sticks kind of Middlesex area if you've got Middlesex Hertfordshire Essex all these little areas are like outside of London and you can end up in the middle of like a place that is nothing around like one pub six houses and a post box you know
it's like and a train stop so people might live there and get the train into London but there's nothing to do when they're at home apart from be at home there's nothing there and some people wanted to they like that I mean it's a little bit like here really I guess this is probably like that thinking about it anyway we're in the middle of this place in the middle of nowhere and we're at this venue I think it was like an arts theatre or arts centre unless it was upstairs in
a pub anyway Tim Vine was doing a comparing so he came on he didn't like it they didn't like him so he introduced the first act came on again audience didn't like him I did my act I don't know if I was on I probably was on came on again audience didn't like him third act like another short one and he and we were just laughing because they just didn't like they really like were hostile towards him and he was doing exactly the same as he ever did which normally was
really successful because he was a very likeable person so what he did is he came back on stage wearing a a plant pot on his head but it was a proper plant pot mud everywhere all over the place all over his head dripping down his face and it got everyone's attention and he said well that last compare was crap wasn't he and they'd laugh and from that second they loved him and he didn't do any different material than what he would have done anyway you know he just carried on with
his act and they loved him but they just didn't like him before Fickle very it's very strange how that can happen I've actually seen more than once a comedian go on stage do exactly the same act this is someone Earl Oaken and he was I don't know if he's still doing it but he he looked a bit like Roy Orbison, he had the glasses and he had a guitar, he was like a middle-aged man and he would sing and I'd never seen him before this is the first time I'd ever seen,
no I had seen him I think once before at the Comedy Store but this is the first time you know I hadn't seen him for years and years so he came on stage, sat down and people were literally booing him and I think someone even chucked stuff on the stage they did not like him at all this is the Friday night and he got off after probably about 10 minutes didn't do his full set and they were really hostile to him there's about 200 people in the audience it wasn't like
a huge amount of people but still it wasn't nice wasn't a nice atmosphere the Saturday night he still turned up to do his gig and possibly had one of the best performances I've ever seen any comedian have as far as an audience reaction standing ovation after standing ovation now I'm exaggerating for effect but it really was an amazing gig the audience loved him from the second they saw him and they laughed at everything and this was a seasoned pro that had probably been doing it for 20 years he knew every
sound he did every facial expression he'd probably done hundreds and hundreds of times before to perfect the act and it was a great act really funny and the first night Friday night they weren't having it Saturday night like different audience but still and the weird thing is I found myself being swayed by the audience because I watched both performances and he did look rubbish on the Friday night on the Saturday night he looked amazing but he wasn't doing anything different I've no doubt that being booed and shouted at would have
affected his performance on Friday night but you know to start with he was doing everything the same and he's one of the best performances I've ever seen on stage and I've seen I don't know how many have I seen thousands probably if you include all the ones I've seen on YouTube and stuff since but thousands on stage live even if it was like only five or ten minutes slot it's a lot of yeah over that 20 year period of sort of going to comedy clubs ten really intensive years and then
I was still going back during them the following 10 years yeah in fact I was still involved in 2016 something my friend did but I just just didn't want to travel to London anymore I just didn't feel up to it which is a shame I kind of wish I had now I went a couple of times I did help out I did some volunteering at a local center I don't know what it's called but it's like a venue I think it's a charity but it's a venue where they have music
dancing stuff like that and I I volunteered there for a few times but again I couldn't one day I couldn't couldn't face going in and kind of messed out for myself but I saw a couple of comedians there and it was so different to see a comedian for me it was so different to see a comedian on stage with an audience especially probably more than 200 people as well but I've seen I've seen audiences of much more than 200 but it's just not being in London to see a stand-up comedian
outside of London was just weird but so funny and I never really understood why people laugh as much as they do sometimes a comedy gig by the audience I didn't understand it as a an audience member because I was I never really felt like an audience member really I have been thousands of times but not really because I was kind of either part of the show or just hanging around with the other comedians you know so I was kind of there or working but we had a my second insurance job
we had a night out everyone went and it was a Ipswich football ground blimey it was yeah had a night out and they put on a comedy show it was hilarious and it was comedians that I'd already seen before they didn't see me because I was in the audience I was like in the dark in the crowd but it was so weird because they were making fun of people that I worked with it made it funnier so their ad-libs and their put-downs were way more funnier as an audience member knowing
the person they were put down or putting down then if it just been in there like a normal crowd of people I didn't know it was hilarious it's plus I was I suppose I was drinking as well but it was great great night just like yeah still a big comedy fan really so this is my Sunday Sunday chit-chat I don't know what I've been talking about so I'm gonna go I have to take this one OUT for a walk so thank you for listening tomorrow I will do Monday's boring objects
Tuesday I will do Tuesday's yeah what is it trivia Tuesday Wednesday hopefully I'll do whisper Wednesday and then I'll do Q&A Friday again now just let you know if you're still awake my neighbor opposite me is having his bathroom fitted either tomorrow or Tuesday I think it's tomorrow actually which means there's gonna be a lot of noise so if for any reason I can't make a recording on any of those days or all of those days just yeah please forgive me because there's only so much noise I can allow when
I'm doing a recording in the background and it's gonna be a lot of door slamming and stuff like that as well which means this old Vinnie here will be barking quite a lot so you know this I've got I've got a maneuver myself around this whole thing but I'll definitely do a Q&A Friday even if I do it in the evening on Friday but I'll try and do normal recordings this week if at all possible so thank you for listening remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy and be gentle with yourself because you do deserve to feel safe lots of love bye
Paragraph spacing and recurring name or title errors have been tidied. Because this began as a voice transcription, an occasional word or piece of punctuation may still be incorrect.