(music) #1297 In bed - Let me bore you to sleep (5th March 2025)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name's Jason Newland. I'm in bed and I'm recording this on my phone so the sound quality won't be perfect. But I thought, you know what, it's been a while since I did a sleep with me recording, for those of you that remember the past, my past, kind of stuff I used to do.

And yeah, every now and then I'd make a recording in bed and I would generally fall asleep whilst doing it. So this could be fall asleep with me as I just, I guess in a way I'm just having a nap, you know, having a little nap. It's about, what's the time, six.

Laying on my side, on my left hand side, and cuddling up to my duvet. So I've got my left leg underneath the duvet and my right leg on top and my head's on a pillow. This is interesting, isn't it? Feet knees at the bottom of the bed on the right hand side.

I'm not 100% sure what he's doing. He's moving around a little bit though. Sometimes he sleeps on the pillow next to me, but he often he does that.

Or he'll sleep on the bed, spread himself out. Or he might sleep on my legs, which is a little bit uncomfortable. The way in between my legs, like my ankles area.

Or he might sleep near the wall, which is the other side of my legs, which limits my movement a little bit. Because if I turn around and lay on my right hand side, I can't put my left leg on top of the duvet. Because that would mean disrupting him.

And I don't like disrupting him. I don't like annoying him. You know when he's asleep? I like to leave, give him a bit of peace and quiet.

He loves his sleep. He has to get at least 11 hours a day, like at night I mean. We go to bed at 10.

He's in bed till at least 9. I'll wake up maybe 5. Have my breakfast, watch some TV. I might come back to bed again about half seven. Till about half nine, he's still asleep.

Sometimes he wakes me up. I'd say most of the time he doesn't, doesn't get up. He just, he's asleep, doesn't want to.

He loves his sleep. Do you see where he is now? He's just in there. Sort of near my lower back.

I can hear the faint sound of music coming from the downstairs flat. It's not loud, it's just faint. It's probably quite loud down there.

And I can hear the traffic from the motorway. Sometimes I can't really hear it, but on a clear day or clear night like now, I can hear it more, because he's not watching the way of wind or weathery sounds. Weathery sounds? I think I can hear a plane going past as well.

And to be honest, I quite like the feeling of just relaxing. Just laying on my bed with my eyes closed. Not really expecting anything of myself.

No pressure to fall asleep. No pressure to stay awake. I mean, why would I be a bit silly to lie down and then try and force myself to stay awake if I didn't need to? Unless I was using that as a technique to fall asleep, which is quite a good technique, actually.

In the same way, we can't force ourselves to sleep either. It's not really a forcible thing. By the way, if I sound like I'm slurring, it's because I'm very drunk.

I'm not. I'm not. I don't have the full movement of my jaw and my mouth, because it's sort of laying on a pillow, if that makes sense.

Hmm. Can't it make sense to me? I don't know. I don't know, but I might try and do something about this recording to make it sound a bit better.

But I don't really know what. I can increase the volume, but as far as background sounds or general... I don't know. I don't know what the sounds are sometimes.

But I'm using the Spreaker app to record this. Maybe there's a better one I could be using that would have a higher quality sound. Mind you, this is still a lot better than the sound quality of my recordings 10 years ago.

Wow. Was that wow necessary? I'm not sure. I think so, maybe.

I'm now thinking about public toilets for some reason. I don't know where my mind goes in these different directions. Just suddenly thinking about a place I used to work in.

Yeah, there was a counsellor there. It was... I forgot all about this place. Wow.

So it's one of these... It would have been for Mind. And Mind used lots of different places sometimes, you know. There was a period when they didn't have their own building in the town that I live.

And they'd sold their building and they were looking for somewhere else. So in the meantime, we were using public facilities. I think we used the Quaker Place.

Or they used the Quaker Place for some stuff. They used... which was the Friends Meeting House. They used the... a few of the mental health places that were... or other, you know, health places.

Just used the rooms. I mean, there was one place I was in that had a piano. It was very distracting.

That's what my client told me. I said, what's most distracting, the piano or me trying to play it? She said, a bit of both, really. I'm here because I need to talk and it's hard to do that when you're playing chopsticks.

I said, what about when I'm playing the piano? Everybody laughed. So there was that place and then there was this other place where... It was just up the road, actually, from where the mine building... because it moved one, two, three times while I was working there. And they had this building.

I liked the one. The second one they had was nice. But it's through an alleyway and it was... Yeah, that's right.

It was there. And it was just next to a like a music venue, like a theatre kind of venue where they had stand up and like dancing events and music bands and stuff. And it was a church.

Well, originally it was a church. And from outside you wouldn't know it was anything but a church. And there was a graveyard in the back and everything.

I mean, it's sacrilege, I think, really, isn't it? But they renovated it inside and turned it into a venue of entertainment. But a few doors up from there is where the mine had their building, the second building they had while I was working for them. And that had rooms.

Yeah, it had some rooms. There was a period when there was lots of us. It took on a lot of counsellors and they needed more places for us to go.

And one of those places was this, it was like a walking centre, helping people with, I don't know, like pregnancy, offering pregnancy help and stop smoking and just general advice on health stuff. So I remember in there they had all these leaflets for lots of different things. And you'd go and get your blood pressure checked, like health screening, stuff like that.

Yeah, I think they probably, yeah, I think they had a diabetes team and maybe weight watchers, you know, quite a few different things they had there. And I remember, well, I'm beginning to remember the room. Yeah, that's the room that I used to use.

But for some reason it was in the mornings, like on a Monday morning or a Friday morning. It was a weekday morning and for some reason I seek to recollect the place having a fireplace. I don't know why.

But then it's not out of the question, really, because some of these buildings around here, very, very old, like, really old, like back in the Roman days old. So, I don't know if they had fireplaces in the Roman days, that fire being invented at that point, I don't know. But I remember it was weird because I could look out the window and I could see a totally different part of town.

I didn't realise how large that building was. I mean, it spread through a lot of area, but it was, it wasn't wide, but it was long, but long. So, I had a few rooms upstairs and I remember I could see over, there was a pub the other side on a different road.

And I remember looking out there and waving at people. I didn't chuck eggs or anything. I just, you know, I feel weird like that.

Again, my clients sometimes sort of ask me, why do you keep looking out the window? Are you thinking of chucking eggs? I was like, no, I'm not. I just, maybe I shouldn't have been a counsellor. I don't know, I got distracted easily.

I didn't. Yeah, I did. There was another place that I worked at.

That was weird because there was a lady that I fell, fell in love with in about 2000, 2010, probably. Had a bit of an infatuation with her, but she wasn't interested in me. And I was just quite happy not to really see her around.

But unfortunately, the place where we were going, where I was using the room, she worked there full time in that building. It's like, oh. But on the other flip side, I got to know a man that worked there.

He was a social worker and he was a really nice man and just got to know him. We used to chat and stuff. And when I got ill in 2014, he actually helped me.

Helped me with some forms, filling out forms and stuff like that. So that was just really, really handy. I mean, that was his job, but it's just, oh.

He really like, I mean, probably nothing that he wouldn't have done for anybody else, but made sure that I knew what was available and what help I could get. Yeah, counselling and therapy and just, you know. I had a budget plan where I could actually have someone, I could spend time with someone once a week and things like that.

I mean, that didn't really work out because I liked it when it was my social, well, there was one person that I got on really well with, then she left. And the person that replaced her was this man and I just didn't get on with him. I didn't dislike him, I just didn't, you know, I just didn't click.

And I don't know if it's, I mean, I generally, I don't know why, but in my more recent years, over the last 20 odd years, 25 years of my life, predominantly I have got on better with females. Again, I don't really know why. I just have, it's not, you know, I do, I've had male friends as well.

One of my best friends was male. I've had, you know, I've got a male friend as well. I've only got really a couple of male friends, but then I've only really got a couple of female friends as well now.

I've only got a handful of friends these days, but that's okay. I've got Vinnie. Yeah, I've got a dog.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, that place, that was the one with the piano in the room. And I found it very weird, just like, you know, in all seriousness, I found like, why is there a piano here? And I thought that was strange. And then we ended up in another place where I was in a tiny little room with a photocopying machine, like a big printing photocopying machine, that took up about half the room.

I thought, what's next? We're going to be on the roof? You know, we're going to be in a coffee shop? It's so, although I wouldn't have minded that really, in a laundrette. But I just like, I would say, out of all the jobs I ever had, being a counsellor was the only one that actually felt like I was doing something, like, meaningful for me. I mean, like, I was doing something, contributing, but at the same time, I wasn't earning enough to earn a living, which is, you know, obviously a really important thing.

You need both. Job satisfaction doesn't mean much if you, you know, can't afford to pay the rent and eat and stuff like that, I suppose. But for a while, it was nice, just nice to be involved, helping people, or feeling that I was helping.

There was these other rooms as well, which were, I think it was just three rooms, three rooms, three counselling rooms, and a little, like, settee reception area. And that was on a hill, on a little hill. And I used to be there during the day and in the evening, you know, different, different days.

And that was the place I was last at with MIND. So I started with MIND in probably January 2011, and then I finished in probably April or May 2014. Yeah, around that time, maybe April 2014.

And with my job, so at this point in April 2014, I was working in insurance, but I was able to secure every Monday off so that I could still pursue the counselling. And I think I saw two, maybe two or three clients during the day, like at a different place, which was a children's charity, or a youth, children's youth place. And I used to counsel there as well.

So yeah, that was, so I was there, I was at the youth place from December 2009 to March 2014. Yeah, so what's that? 2009, 10, 11, 12, 13. So four years and four years and four months.

And, you know, the counselling part of it was amazing. Just, it's weird that I was there for so long. Yeah, wow.

Time don't half fly, don't it? It's kind of strange sometimes when I think back to that. All those years, it took me two years full-time education to become a counsellor, and then a further year for my degree. So three years full-time for the degree, which started in September 2007.

So yeah, it was six and a half years of my life, I guess really, with the degree course and the counselling practice as well. Trying to think of any other rooms that I counselled at. I think that's it actually.

I mean, I did counsel at two different places for the children's charity. There was one place that was above a bank, that was their offices, and then 2011. So yeah, so from December 2009, and this was a charity.

They were both, I mean, mine is a charity as well, so this other place was also a charity. I think they had a wealthy donor who paid for the building, I think. Not 100% sure, but it's a big building in town, so it'd be worth a lot of money.

It'd be expensive. Yeah, I can't think of any other places that I would have gone to. What I did do actually is there was another arm of mine, which was, I mean, they advertised, I don't know where they advertised, but I saw the advert.

Oh, it might have been in the BACP Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy in their magazine. Maybe they advertised there, or I might just, someone told me about it. And what they wanted was counsellors, so qualified counsellors could only apply, but what it was, was going into schools and being emotional support for children that were struggling with whatever, you know, whatever the situation was.

And so I applied, and because I'd been working with children, with the children's charity, they took me on with mine, and I was already with mine in any way, so they took me on for this role. And it was the same kind of situation, but I had to travel to the schools. And there's a lot of schools around in this town, or this city that I live in.

Lots of schools, and none of them are near each other. So I was spending a long time travelling to these places, so it was not easy, because I don't drive. You know, I was relying upon buses and stuff like that.

That was probably the most, I don't know, maybe, not the most, but possibly the most enjoyable one, because there was a degree of freedom. Didn't have to just stay in one room, and I was learning so much, because with the youth place that I was counselling, most of the kids were over 10, you know, 10 or upwards, but some of these kids in the schools were like 6, 7, and there's a big difference.

And yeah, sometimes we'd just, I'd say, go into the playground and kick a ball around, or if it was a summer's day, go and do some drawings in the playground outside, and or the kid would, like, show me around the school, or in the library, and, you know, it's just, I don't know, something quite fascinating about being in, like, the little school, where at one point I was, you know, that age, and just seeing everything so small, all the little tables, and the little chairs, and it's kind of funny, really, just to see, it's like, wow, how did it get so tiny?

And even the rooms, like, the sports hall was little.

I just remember it always being big, but not, not in that place, because I didn't go to school there, but it probably is big to them. Everything's big to them, isn't it? It's all the rooms, but then when I go back when I'm an adult, like, wow, how did I manage to play football in this size hall? Maybe, I don't know. Well, there was a karate club opposite me, and there's a school, and there's a karate club in the school.

This is, like, where I'm kind of been living now, and I went over there, and I thought they might have, like, a sports hall or something, but they just use the same room as they have the assembly, and it's not a big space, and not big enough for any kind of sports club, not really. I didn't think so, anyway. I mean, perfect in the summer, because I got, you know, the football field and stuff, which is a fair size.

I'm feeling quite relaxed. I just turned over the other side. I just think it's sometimes nice to lay down in the dark.

In some ways, it feels like I'm stepping into things, like I'm part of the world. Instead of stepping out and being distant from it, I want to just allow myself to notice the sounds, whether it's the neighbors, whether it's the odd door slamming, or the central heating coming on, or Vinnie, or maybe it's just my own breathing. There's something about just lying here, being, being very aware of how I feel, physically, how my arms feel, how nice it feels to have my eyes closed, just to have a break, you know, take some time out.

It's quite peaceful in here downstairs, turning the bathroom light on. Sometimes it's quite nice just to know that there's someone else around, without having to see them, but just knowing there's people close by, other neighbors. It's been a nice day today, really nice weather, sunny, although I think it's the third day in a row, it's been frosty in the morning, but by the time I go out, generally kind of defrosted, and I still wear my hat.

When I go out in the morning, how about I go out in the evening, I shave my head, probably two weeks ago, and I think the fact that I've got one of those door cameras doesn't really help, because every time I leave without a hat, I can see the bald patch on the back of my head, or at the top, I think, is it the crown, the crown, I don't know, that spot that's like the weak spot on a baby's skull, that's kind of where I've gone bald, not completely bald,

but yeah, it's definitely less hairy than it used to be, it feels more like, because I think normally like my head, hair just feels just hair, doesn't it, and I think my hair feels hairy, like my arm or my leg might feel hairy, or my bald, no, but you know, it, that's hairy, but hair just feels like hair, stay with me, I think what I'm saying makes sense, I think, but that bald patch is hairy, there is gaps between the hairs, and when I leave my home without my hat on,

I can see the bald patch, in fact, looks like I'm going bald, when, when technically I'm not, apart from that bald patch, I shaved my hair, but now because my hair is, I'm going to start to go a bit blonde, as I've aged, blonde, I'm sticking to that colour, blonde, and on the camera, the blonde hair doesn't seem to show so well, which makes me look even balder, but I know that I do have some hair, somewhere, I do, I've got hair, but it's very short, what I've also noticed is,

that there was a time when I would shave my head, completely shave it, and it would grow back very quickly, and it would be the same length as my beard, like if I shaved my face and my head, it'll grow back the same length, that is not the case anymore, my beard has grown back a lot quicker, than my hair, I don't know, they become lazy, like they can't be bothered to grow, I don't know if, that's a weird thing, he just made a very strange noise, he flapped his ears,

I don't know if the rest of my hair follicles are being affected by the bald spot, do you know, you know, when you're in a factory or something, and if you get like a few people, literally just don't do any work, and everybody else sees that they're getting away with doing practically nothing, that can have a big effect on the workforce, well they're getting away with doing nothing, and having lots of tea breaks, and poo breaks, and you know, they're working really slowly, and no one's saying anything to them,

and they're still getting paid, why should we do lots of work, and I think that that might be what's happening with my hair, I'm whistling through my nose, this is weird, maybe not then, I thought I could hear with my ears, as opposed to my feet, of course my ears are the only thing I hear things with, I think, yeah, anyway, that's it, for evening, that's a nice sound, so I was just, um, not really sure what my hair's gonna do, because for the first, I started receding a little bit in the late 90s,

just a little bit, and probably around the age of 29, I started getting the odd grey, in fact I think I used to pull them out, but the odd one, like, you know, the odd one, occasional, and occasional, not grey, blonde, I mean, the occasional blonde hair would arrive, and then my concern in my late, what was I, 20s, my late 20s, was, oh, if I'm receding now, what am I gonna be like in 10 years time, which would be, like, 2008, 2009, I thought I might be bald,

but that didn't happen, but what did happen, I kind of, it receded, but really slowly, and then I thinned out on top, like at the front, so that bit of my hair that is there, you know, the bit that hasn't receded, there's less hairs there now, and I used to use braw cream, and my hair used to be a lot longer than it is these days, and I like my hair like that, but the problem with the braw cream, I don't know,

I think I get a feeling that some of the hairs at the front of my head started having disagreements, and were kind of, you know, trying to move away from each other, leaving what looked like little gaps, maybe loss of hair, looked like that, it might be the braw cream, sticking them all together, but it wasn't, and then in 2000 and 2003, begin of 2003, I started shaving my head with clippers every Sunday afternoon, whilst watching Smallville on television, I don't even know if it was a coloured television,

it might be in black and white, seriously, that is sad, isn't it, 2000, because I was, in 2002, I was watching a black and white television, black and white portable television, 2002, I had a full-time job, paying me okay money, I could have bought a new television every month, but for some reason, I just didn't bother, I was kind of in a world of limbo for a while, you know, when I moved from London, I went from being a big colour TV in my room, I was at the internet,

I was working on building websites, all that stuff, but had a social life, and then I moved, I moved out of there, temporarily in another place in London, and I moved away from London, and I had this studio apartment, studio flat, so with one room, kitchen, and a bathroom, it was nice, but for some reason, I just didn't seem to bother with niceties, I didn't have a computer for the first two years of living there, I think 2003, I got a computer, so for nearly two years, I just went to work,

came home, watched telly, went to bed, I had a little bit of social life, and I did visit my nan quite a lot, I must have had a television though, I did have a television, but I must have had, surely, I mean, at the end of my time there, I had a computer, I think it was a, don't remember, maybe it was a laptop, I'm pretty sure, I had, yeah, yeah, I know at some point, I had a portable television, which I bought from, what was the video place, Blockbusters,

in 2024, 2000 to 2004, sorry, 21 years ago, wow, I might have had that in that place, yeah, maybe, unless the TV I had had broken, or something like that, because I've been making recordings since 2006, I've kind of got a bit of a record of what I've done, like a little bit of a journal, a verbal journal, about roughly what's happened during that time, including me talking about, you know, the previous years and stuff, but previous to that, I actually used to write written journals from 1989 all the way to 2011,

and in 2011, I ripped them all up, by quite a few pads of writing, all the way through the 90s, 2000s, 2011 to 20, 22 years, 20, yeah, something like that, 23 years, and I didn't, I think nearer the end, write so much, but there was periods in my life when I'd write a lot, and it would be every day, but yeah, kind of weird really, I'd like to have them back when they're gone, that's done, but be nice, because I could read through them now and say, oh, oh, oh,

I forgot about that, I remember that, you know, things like that, especially the 90s, I mean, it was a big time for me, it was my 20s, start off the 90s, I was 19 until the end of August 1990, when I was 21, no, then I was 20, sorry, so the whole of my 20s was during the 90s, and I turned 30 in 2000, it's just weird to think that since 2000, 25 years has gone by, well, 24 and a bit of this year, I had some tea cakes earlier,

and then probably five days out of date, I'm not sure if I should have eaten them, my stomach was making so many weird noises, that even my toilet hid, my toilet was scared, I think I missed Valentine's Day, when was it, was it February, Pancake Day was yesterday, Shrove Tuesday, today's Wednesday, or is it Tuesday today, no, it's Wednesday today, not all week are Wednesday, what is it, there's the Lent, is it a day of Lent, I think it is today, Wednesday Lent, and I think this is the,

a period of resolving, if you've given up stuff for Lent, so it's, I don't know what I could give up, I suppose I could give up being so damn groovy for a week or so, I don't know, I thought Lent led up to Easter, so maybe Easter's in March this year, because sometimes Easter's in April, sometimes it's in March, it's just like, wow, pick a day, well, it's always a Sunday, but, you know, Christmas, it's the same day every year, it's the same date, not the same day, Easter's just random,

there's been times when Easter's been like, nearly halfway through the month of April, and this might not be actually factual, but, you know, it does variate, sometimes the end of March, sometimes it's in April, and I don't understand why, I think my most memorable Easter's in my life has been, well, there's one Easter I remember when we was, see, when I was a kid, I can't give my dad and his wife, at the time, a lot of credit, they're very generous, when it came to Christmas, birthdays, even Easter,

we'd get loads of Easter eggs, it was brilliant, so on Easter, we would, me and my, I think probably my, one of my older brothers, would get sent off to Sunday school, only on Easter day, Easter morning, no other time of the year, so we'd just go along, it was just up the road, and we'd stay there for a couple of hours, and then come back and have our Easter, chocolate Easter eggs, I found out later, so that the, the parents could just have a bit of time on their own,

I imagine my oldest brother was just out doing their own thing, because he was four years older than me, but when I was 12, he's pretty much left school, or old enough to leave school, I don't think he did leave school till he was 18, because he was clever, yeah, four years is quite a lot back then, but you think about it, he was 14 when I was 10, he was a teenager when I was nine, teenager is 13, isn't it, teen, to be 12, teen, yeah, now though, I'm, wherever I am,

okay, let's pretend I'm old, let's say I'm 54, he's 58, he'll be 59, a month after I'm 55, 59, that's, cheered me up, that's, he's an old man, and I'm a young, I'm a young spring bunny, I do like spring, because we're, you know, technically we're in spring now, I mean, not, not really officially until the end of the month, but it's now, what, the 6th, 5th or 6th of, wait a minute, no, behind me, I think it was the 1st of, it's the 1st of March on Friday,

so the 1st is Friday, Saturday's the 2nd, Sunday's the 3rd, Monday's the 4th, Tuesday's the 5th, today's the 6th, which means those hot cross buns that I ate were from the 1st of March, although I think they were delivered on the 1st of March, or at least the day before, so, I don't know why they were giving me stuff that was already out of date nearly, I think maybe six days over was too much for me to be eating them, but, yeah, I'm all right now though, just,

I think I need to maybe, I think also because I, I accidentally ordered three packs of hot cross buns, and I only ever normally eat two a time, and that's only once, like once a day if that, so the last two days I've had to have four, because, you know, Friday, no, Saturday and Sunday, or was it four packs, I'm not sure, anyway, they're gone now, that might not be the most interesting story of hot cross buns, but I do have an interesting one, I remember when I moved into the chip shop,

flat, the flat above the chip shop, Easter bank holiday, and, so that weekend, Good Friday's also a bank holiday, so I had the Friday off work, the Saturday, no, the Sunday and the Monday off work, probably worked on the Saturday, so, yeah, I'm pretty sure Friday would have been off, being bank holiday, mind you, I don't know, chips on a Friday is quite traditional in this country, so Sunday, definitely had, I always had Sunday off, generally anyway, I think we opened a couple of times in the summer, on a Sunday,

just to catch the trade, generally, Sunday was, most of the time, Sunday was closed, I just remember my friend coming around on a Sunday, Easter day, visited, and, although it might have been Friday, see, I can't remember, either Friday or Sunday, and I had just literally moved in, so he came round and we watched Worzel Gummidge on my black and white television, whilst I cooked some hot cross buns and made a cup of tea for both of us, and that was the first time, yeah, first time I'd ever, really,

it's the first time I ever really had to fend for myself, because I was 16, and up to that point, I was still living with my step mum, and she'd cook me dinners and stuff, and, or I'd eat at work, so I didn't have to really do anything for myself at that point, didn't have to do my own laundry, nothing like that, until, you know, I was 16, and then I had to do everything on my own.

So, cooking those hot cross buns are probably one of the first things I ever cooked, like, for myself, I mean, I was cooking every day in the chip shop for other people, but it's kind of easy, in a way, if you, you know, you stick everything in a fryer, everything but ice cream, that didn't go well, but, you know, it's like everything goes in the fryer, and it's generally with things like fish and chips as well, they float, when they cook, they float at the top, it's quite easy, you know,

it's, it's pretty easy to cook fish, I mean, it's weird, it's been hundreds of years since I last was there, 1988, 98, 2008, 2018, 2028, three years, and that'll be, wow, over, over 15 years, and I think, I wonder if that's what I'm going to be remembered for, he worked in a chip shop when he was 16, because it's the only thing I ever talk about, wow, he made a mean battered sausage, I would even say that I was pretty good at parts of the job, I used to get a little bit,

I found it a bit difficult serving people at times, especially when it was busy, and, but the frying side of things, I kind of was quite good at, I think, I got there, yeah, I did, and I had some regulars would only, did only want me to cook their food, because I knew how they liked it, what they didn't know is, I had no idea who they were, I didn't remember, remember who they were, they want you to cook it, Jason, okay, what do you want?

Usual, okay, so what I do is, I just do one of each of everything, and I just hope for the best, I remember once he came back, he said, why did you, he said, I really appreciate your special service and everything, and you take care of me, I said, that's good, fine, he said, yeah, but I got home the other day, and there was seven bits of fish in there, all different fish, I said, yeah, he said, well, I only wanted one, he wanted one what?

One bit of fish, even then I couldn't find out what he wanted, what he ordered, well, he just couldn't tell me, I don't know, turned out it was skate, there's a story about skate, I can't tell you, whenever the fishmonger used to come, he used to talk about it, well, you know why we have to, it's illegal, we have to cut the skate up before we bring it on to the shore, we have to chuck parts of it away, it's the law of the land, and that's my impression of Popeye,

and you have to go online to find out what that's about, if you don't already know, skate, put it this way, if someone says to you, uh, if you're a fisherman and they say, what did you do last night? I spent time with my girlfriend, oh, what'd you do? Go to cinema, no, I went skating, see, that could have a different meaning, so, so it's just you and the fish then, hmm, hmm, hmm, I've got no idea how long I've been talking for, am I still talking?

Is it still recording?

It's not even recording, no, it is recording, it is recording, 82 minutes, whatever that is, and I've still not fallen asleep, maybe this will just be a Let Me Bore You To Sleep, Let Me Bore You To Sleep in bed with me, in bed, yeah, although, because the sound quality's not gonna be groovy, groovy perfect, but you might not, you might want me to use a better microphone, I don't know, I've no way of knowing, how could I know what anyone wants, I just don't know, I suppose a good look at getting a, a better microphone, like an external one, but then where would I put it?

You know what I mean? Where would I put it? Where would I put it? So this is what it sounds like being in bed with me, although Vinnie does snore, I know I snore, but Vinnie snores, by the way, here's a little bit of information, if you have a partner that snores, that means that you also snore, what do you mean?

No, it does, because if you're disturbed by someone snoring, it means that you're a light sleeper, which means that you also snore, deep sleepers aren't disturbed by snorers, and deep sleepers don't snore, generally, I'm a snorer and I'm a light sleeper, not physically light, because I'm big and fat, but you know, light as in, they don't necessarily go particularly deep, no, actually, the only reason I say that about the snoring is that every single couple that I've ever known, where one of them complains about everyone snoring,

I always ask the other person and I always said, yeah, they snore as well, and every single person that's complained about me snoring, also snore, that's what makes me laugh, it's like, I'm not going to complain about their snoring, because I know that I snore, and I think I only had one, maybe two, one particular girlfriend in 96, 97, nothing disturbed her, she went to sleep, she was gone, that was it, I don't know if she just was a really just naturally very deep sleeper, or she had absolutely no conscience,

I think she just never looked back on anything, just carried going, went forward and didn't, no, no concerns, no regret, and just went to sleep, she was 18 years old, it's like completely content, and she was in bed, like asleep, gone, nothing disturbed her, she didn't even know that I snored, in fact, I think she's the only person I didn't complain about me snoring, complained about everything else, but didn't complain about snoring, sometimes I just wake up and I'd make her a cup of tea, and I'd come into the bedroom,

I'd look at her and I think, if only she could be this quiet all the time, she was so lovely when she wasn't talking, she's a little bit rude to me, she was, she's funny actually, I'm going to shut up now, I'm just being silly, she was lovely I'm sure, we just had very different lives, very different, do you hear that, it's my stomach, it means either dinner time or poo time, one of them, so she was young, she was younger than me at the time, she was 18, I was,

was I 26, 25, no, I was 25, so she was 18, I was 25, and we had zero in common, she was a student nurse, I was a security guard, she had aspirations for a career and to travel, she'd already travelled extensively during her childhood, and she was half Italian, so she spent a lot of the year, like summer, you know, on holiday, she spent that in Italy, I used to go to Wales, camping with my 33 brothers and sisters, okay, so that's a lie, but yeah, it wasn't quite,

didn't have quite the same exotic travelling experience as she had, I'm not having a go at Wales, I think Wales is a beautiful country, it truly is, but it was wet, it was hot at times, but also it was wet, and I know this is controversial, but if you don't travel across the sea, you know, through the air for a long time, but definitely across the sea, if you don't have to cross the sea to get to a place, and it's not another country, I know, controversial, so, can you hear my stomach?

Well, so I wouldn't do very well once I got to France, would I? It's like, well, now going into Spain, no, it's still France, it's not France, it's a different country, it's still the same land mass, yeah, I always used to feel that way when I was younger, like, why would you have a different country, same land mass, just forget all these continents and stuff, just have countries, whatever land mass, and just have it as a country, like you do with New Zealand or with Australia, just have it as a country, but apparently that's not a popular idea, oh dear, maybe I'm just an optimist,

and just instead of having countries, just have towns, the city of France or the city of Belgium, that's a place, isn't it, yeah, the city of Italy, and then just have the cities as towns, so Paris could just be a town, and then you could just have, call that Europe, I mean, it's already called Europe anyway, just have it all as Europe, and every bit of land connected to Europe is all one country, and everyone has to get along, so there, see, I sorted it all out,

that's the benefit of just relaxing and chilling out, the whole world's problems are sorted in a few seconds, and we can all just get back to living our lives and getting on with each other, yeah, I wonder if the world has started to become self-sufficient, like each country decides, you know what, especially with all these over-reliance on other countries, to maybe go back to, you know what, we'll just, we'll just live on our own food that we grow, I don't know if it's possible, it might, might be possible, I mean,

in my country, we've got a lot of farms, a lot of fields, surely there's enough there to feed this population, but then we'd have to do without bananas, and I suppose things like raisins, and tuna fish probably, things like that, monkeys brains, I don't know, whatever we, we get through, so you know, that'd be strange, who thought of this idea, self-sufficiency, wow, but then we'd have to have our own oil, yeah, although we could have the, what they have in some countries, those bicycle things, you know, where they pull the thing,

you can sit in it, and there's like a little carriage, and a bicycle person pulls it along, maybe you could have two people on a bicycle to make, you know, so it's a bit easier work, or I always thought, you know, those, those little electric cars that kids use, I mean, they used to be pedals, and then they had like electrics, like a little, you know, battery in them, so they don't go fast, maybe five miles an hour, or something like that, why not have them, five miles an hour cars,

it's like, oh, that's not very good, it would take ages to get anywhere, still quicker than walking, and we should be able to just charge them with solar panels, from the sun, well, you know what solar panels is, okay, I mean, they'd have to be a bit bigger than the ones for kids, because that'd be a squash, wouldn't it, especially with my big fat legs, I've actually got legs like a giraffe, and what's that other animal, jumpy up and down one, on a kangaroo, got arms like a kangaroo,

a bum like a hyena, and the feet of a penguin, see, 48% Irish I am, did you know that, yeah, 48%, yep, and neither of my parents were Irish, go figure, you'd think at 48% that one of my parents would be like fully Irish, wouldn't you, but no, no, no, no, neither of them are Irish, my grandmother, my dad's mother was Irish, both her parents were Irish, and going back for centuries Irish, but apparently also my mother's side, they must have been Irish, because I'm 48%, I had my DNA done,

also highly intelligent, okay, I didn't say that, but I just assume, I'd love it if they could do an IQ test from a blood sample, or from a saliva sample, or some other sample, just come back with my IQ test, that'd be cool, I'd do that test, I really, really would, in fact, I don't think I've ever been so excited about anything in my life, I feel like my stomach is demanding I eat something, so I'm gonna go, thank you for listening, sorry if the quality of the sound's a bit rubbish, but hey, you know

me, I like to do experimental stuff, 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.