(music) #1298 Book thief - Let me bore you to sleep (6th March 2025)

Hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. This is Let Me Bore You To Sleep.

Do I need this screen blaring? It's a little bit bright. A little bit, a little bit bright. Why is it so bright? I know why.

Because I turned the brightness up by accident trying to turn the volume up. So I'm trying to be a little bit easier on my eyes by having the glare less, if at all possible. Right, so today, last night, last night I did a recording.

And I didn't put it on YouTube, but it was in bed as yesterday's Let Me Bore You To Sleep. And I spent about an hour and 40 minutes recording it. It was about an hour and 40 minutes, let's check.

Let me check in bed. Well, an hour and 29 minutes, but there was a few gaps and stuff. And I just laid in bed chatting absolute rubbish.

And then my stomach started gurgling and I realized, ooh, I need to eat. So I mean, I didn't go, ooh, you know what I mean? I did go like, hmm. I might not have gone hmm, but I had a reaction.

So what I did is I got up. Now, I recorded the audio on my phone without any external microphone, just the internal one, thinking, well, it's not going to be great. It should be okay.

It should be, you know, if I say at the beginning of the recording, which I did, it's not going to be a particularly good quality sound. I was not prepared for how bad the quality sound was. It was really bad, like, really bad.

And I didn't know what to do. Because I just spent an hour and 40 minutes, hour and 45 minutes, whatever. Well, it turns out to be an hour and 29 minutes, but there was editing to do.

So I thought, what can I do? What can I do with this? And I wasn't sure, because the quality was really bad. So I found a way to improve the quality of the sound. I'll tell you, I use an app.

This is a one off situation. I'm not doing this again, by the way, I just thought I'd let you know what I did AI podcast, cleanup, or phonic, or phonic.com. And it's free, they allow you a two hour, two hours of free audio cleanup before signing up, you know, for a membership. So I joined as a but you know, free.

My recording lasted for less than two hours. Whoa, oh, it was 2222 hours 34 minutes ago. But I did that.

So it's now 745. So yeah, that would make sense about eight o'clock in the evening. I decided, like, I'll give it a go.

Give it a go. There's a few different options you can take, you can cut out gaps, which I don't want to do. Because part of the part of what I do part of what I don't want to do, and I do want to do what I do do do do do what I do what part of too many do's.

Part of what I'm attempting with my recordings, my videos and everything is to stay to keep hold of the normal communication style, human aspect of podcasts and of videos, recordings, stuff like that. Without AI voices, without even before AI voices was a thing. There was that whole kind of no gaps situation, which is something that I've never wanted.

So I don't do that. I don't cut out all the gaps because it's natural. I would say it's natural to have gaps, maybe not as many gaps as I have.

But that's because maybe I just talk slowly. And I sometimes attempt to think about what I say before I say it, sometimes, occasionally, now and then. Every now and then I get a little bit do do do do do do do turn around.

And yeah, I want it to because at the moment I'm going on YouTube and more and more videos have got AI voiceovers, more and more. And they are good quality, a lot of the voiceovers are getting much better. Pronunciation of words is a bit weird.

It's kind of obvious when they can't pronounce. I'm trying to think of an example. Numbers is something that sometimes comes up weird.

And yeah, AI is not great at the moment at reading names and things like that. But it will improve. So probably next year or so, it will be maybe it'll be industry indistinguishable.

You know, by the way is, but it's still not going to be real. And I'm going to try and keep a bit of realness going. I think, you know, that is kind of this, for those that want to keep, keep hold of human voices and real people on camera.

Like me, even if no matter how weird I look. You know, so this is what I do. And that's not going to change.

Hopefully, I will get older. And my voice will probably get like that as I get older. Now relax yourself.

I mean, that might be how I talk in the future. Maybe that's how I talk now. Maybe that's exactly how I sound to you.

Maybe you're thinking, we're just doing the same voice. Why is you know, there was no difference, which worries me. It's like some people can go to a kebab shop, have like, it could be the worst kebab shop in the world.

Get a pizza, that's the worst pizza has ever been made. And think, oh, tastes the same as Domino's exactly the same, no difference. It's like, where's your taste buds? Are they in your bum? It's like some people like that with ears, not with ears, but like hearing wise, all sounds the same to me.

Can't tell the difference between people's voices. Okay, who's the bloke the the one from that prison film? Oh, got lots of freckles. His voice is used on 1000s of new videos every day as a voiceover.

I can't he's been in millions of films. Sure, damp, sure, damp redemption. That that bloke he played the black man.

The night he was played the black man. That's a silly thing. He he was the star wasn't he? He was what him and the tall man.

Them two, they were the stars. I can't think of his name. Can't think of either their names.

They're both prisoners. They played prisoners. Morgan Freeman, I think he was wasn't didn't he work in the library? I think so.

He's a great always also played God. He's done lots of different characters. And you know, he's great.

Did he was he in the bucket list with Jack Nicholson? I think he was. I think he was. But his voice.

I think his class is like the best voice in the world. It's like the best male voiceover voice that they could be in existence. Which means he's used a lot.

A lot. And I just hope he gets paid for it. Mr. Morgan.

Hope Mr. Morgan gets paid for it. Because you know, you think literally, millions of hours of his voice are listened to every week, like millions, you know, throughout YouTube, like millions of hours of him talking, doing voiceovers for hedgehogs, having sex on the end of a pair with a porcupine. Which is kind of not really cross species, is it? Similar.

Right, so in the middle of talking, the chip van turns up in a little one starts barking. Because he knows to the chip van has something that he likes to eat. I'm going to spell it to you because I don't want to say out loud.

S. O. S. S. I. J. I. S. S. E. S. something like that. He that's what he knows. Yeah, he does.

He knows that they're there. And he knows that he wants to go. But luckily, he stopped barking so I can now get on with the recording.

How did they get talking about Mr. Freeman Morgan? I don't know. He I've talked about a podcast. Oh, yeah, I want it.

I don't know. I don't know. It is the people do we value human humans? Or are we okay? Are people okay for all videos and all podcasts to be AI? I mean, I'm I'm cool with AI.

I like I'm a big fan of AI actually. Big fan. But for me, it's tools to use to create something but not instead of that makes sense.

So I don't want to I technically could put together a hypnosis podcast without ever saying a word. I could put the whole thing together. I could even do like a video of a person talking.

But what's the point in that? It's not real. And it's just it doesn't seem any and apart from the fact it's expensive and I'd have to have a popular YouTube channel to cover the cost of such a thing. But it's like, where's the where's the feel good factor of being successful with something like that? I mean, I think it's super clever what people can do with AI, you know, with videos and it's, it's moving so fast that, you know, an unbelievable speed.

And there was a new video out. It was actually on the six o'clock. Well, not six.

So it was on the main news today, how someone had put together they were just testing a new AI video platform, just testing it out. And they had, I think, a day to play with it. This company let them have it for a day and they're just testing it out.

And they built a video in eight hours. And it was like a political make fun of political thing. It wasn't serious, but it's kind of poking fun at some politicians, some big famous politicians.

Well, what happened is it, they posted it on, I think one of the people posted it online for to see if people thought it was any good. And it got shared hundreds of 1000s of times. So they decided to pull it off, put it on, they decided to, to, to put it back, get off, get it offline.

Because they didn't want to upset the political figures that were on the video. I'm as vague as I can. And it was too late.

Because the political figure that they didn't want to see it, saw it. But something happened different to what they expected. That political figure posted the video onto their own social network platform, thinking it was really good.

Even though it was kind of poking fun at him, or her, or them. And the person that did this, that he's been interviewed, he, the discussion really was this new platform that's not even been launched yet, is so good. That in another year or two, three years, people won't be able to tell the difference anymore.

But what's real, what's not real. And it's going to cause going to cause some interesting situations to arise. Bear in mind that there are probably millions of people out there that believe what they see.

They don't question what they see. And I think part of the reason, because they're too busy. You know, go back to my granddad's generation, worked all day, got home, you know, looking after the family, kids and all that stuff.

And then they went to bed and got up again. And they had to rely on the news to tell them what was going on. And they had to have a degree of trust in what they were seeing on the news or hearing on the radio.

That that's kind of how it was or what they read in the newspapers. Now, there's no way of knowing what's in the newspapers anyway, hasn't been for decades, don't know what's true and what's not true. So it's weird, but now it's gone in a different direction.

Because it's not just the main press now, it's everywhere. And a new thing I've noticed is there's a lot of videos on I think it's Facebook or Instagram of animals being rescued. And like a shark being rescued or a lion being rescued.

And people are petting the lion or the shark, feeding it by hand and stuff, because they've untangled it, when in fact, it's not real. And I don't know what kind of education that's going to give very impressionable people to think that it's safe to be doing that. But it looks so real now.

And if you, you know, you've really got a kind of, I find I have to scrutinize it sometimes, just to see the people that they got, how many fingers have they got? You know, it's really weird, like how many things am I holding up? Or how many fingers is the person got on the video? If they've got seven fingers, it might not be real. But the quality is improving.

And it's just, I think it's, it's super exciting.

But at the same time, a little bit concerned, a little bit. I mean, maybe it'll get to the point where those people that watch my videos or listen to my podcasts, which is my main thing, really, is the podcasts. Although I would like to build the YouTube channel up is maybe I'm replaceable.

Maybe everyone is. It's just I feel one of the good things about for me, personally, something that the internet offered me was something that life, like real life didn't. And that was an ability to create something out of nothing.

And to reach an audience, which I would never ever known about. And I've had contact with people in America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and various places who I would never have had contact with, simply because there was no way to do that before the internet. And then she actually traveled to the country.

Or you met the person as I would travel into you, you know, they were on holiday, or you was on holiday, outside of that, or I don't know. Yeah, I can't really unless she's like, in the in the forces in the Navy, or you're traveling, basically, it's just that's a way to meet people from other countries. Or you live in London, or a big city, where people were traveling and on holiday or moving, living there, whatever.

So yeah, you can, because when I lived in London, I met a lot of people from all over the world. Before I went to London, I think I met, okay, that's not true. But when I was in a children's home, I met people from different places.

But in in the little town I lived in, from the ages seven to 20. I think I knew two Chinese people. I knew of two, I knew one to talk to, but two Chinese people, Chinese, they were Chinese takeaway.

They worked in a Chinese takeaway. And I got to know the girl that worked in there because I lived above there. I live well, I lived this, their Chinese takeaway was next door to the supermarket that I worked at.

And I lived above. So I got to know her a little bit, because I was going in there quite a lot and having my omelette and chips and peas. And what's those crispy things? Not naan bread.

They're like wafers. Poppadom, not poppadoms. They're a bit like poppadoms, aren't they? Anyway, so I quite like spring rolls.

Not necessarily curry, or not strong curry. But spring rolls, I want one now. Right now.

I love a spring roll. I used to buy them sometimes like buy frozen ones. And they used to be little, like really kind of small.

Yummy. You could put I mean, you could put the whole thing in your mouth, but sometimes it'd be hot. So I used to like to buy it in the middle of it.

And if it was too hot, I'd like that. And I'd go back and wait. But if it was the right temperature, I might just buy a half of it off or I might just go like that.

And just pop it in my whole, all of my mouth. Pop it in all of my mouth, pop all of it in my mouth. So yeah, I don't think there was.

I think there was one non-white person in my school. And yeah, it was a very, very white English kind of little town where there was pretty much no one from outside. It wasn't that they weren't allowed in.

They just no one moved there. I don't know what it's like anymore. But it was weird.

And then I moved to London. And I was in East London, which is Newham. And it's the most what's the correct word, divergent, ethnic, ethnically divergent or, you know, place in the whole of this country and possibly one of the most places in the world.

There was people from everywhere in East London, like everywhere, every single place in the world, people were there. And I liked it. It was very strange.

I quite liked it because it was different. And you know, being on the tube and just hearing so many different languages, not knowing what the heck anyone was saying. And it was, I don't know, it was quite nice.

Because it's like, well, they might be talking about me. But I got no proof. There's no way of knowing.

Why would they be talking about me anyway? But if you've got someone that speak in the same language as you, you can kind of confirm if they're talking about you. If you hear the words, he's so damn handsome. He's beautiful.

He's like a model within a model. Exactly. They're talking about me.

But if someone saying it in a different language, so beautiful is a model inside of a model. That that is maybe another language. I'm not sure.

And yeah, I remember after living there for 12 years, I moved back, but not to the same town. But I moved back to a like a place, a much bigger place outside of that town. And that was more multicultural, but not not hugely still probably 90% white British.

Probably more than that, actually. It's really 95%. But I lived in a, do you know, at the moment is a there's a lot of thing press about refugee hotels, and hotels have got a lot of refugees and stuff in when I've lived in one of them.

See, I've done a lot of things in my life. It's exciting, isn't it? Genuinely, I moved to this. I got a room was a bed set, or studio apartment in the YMCA.

And there was about 60 flats in that place. And it's a huge building. There's about 60, maybe even more flats in there.

And I was, I literally moved in, because they needed someone to move in. It's like, and then suddenly, the place was full, but to the rams rammed to the rams, what's the rams, very, very full of people from Afghanistan, because this was 2001. And it was just really not strange for me, because I was used to being around people from other countries.

But it was strange for other people around there. Because you had one section, which was for the homeless people, but the young and people that were kind of were homeless, really. And they would share rooms.

So that was a different building. If they I don't know, this is the words of the people around the place, if they behave themselves, they would then get an opportunity to have a studio apartment in the big building. There's a huge, huge building.

And then from there, they could then move on to like a council flat. You know, that that's kind of the route, a route to go. And so there was some of those people were in there.

There was me, I think, many people like me there. And I was just working. Technically, I don't think I should have even really been there.

So I was taking someone's flat, or studio apartment studio flat, somebody that probably needed it more than me. But I didn't know that when I moved in. But that side, that was staying in the hostel part, didn't like the people that were staying in the main building.

Very weird, very strange atmosphere. Very strange. So I've kind of lived in that environment.

I know what it's like. And it's difficult for wasn't difficult for me. But I think it's difficult for them.

It was difficult for some of the people around them. You know, change something new. And it's not always welcomed as a change, or itchy leg.

I've been bitten a lot of bites on my shoulder. So I mean, I've been going out two days in a row just with a jumper on. And because it's been sunny, I think I might have been bitten by a, I don't know, a tree flea or something.

I don't know. But it doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt.

Just not even that itchy really. I don't know why I'm scratching it just for effect. I think I've got no special effects.

So I thought I just scratch. That'd be the equivalent of a car chase, I suppose, really. And I was I don't know how I got on to that subject.

Anyway, the podcast yesterday. I felt a little bit nostalgic for London. Because I was thinking about it the other day.

And the good thing about living in London. There's not many good things. I would say like when I was there, there wasn't a lot of advantages for me living in London.

And I know that I couldn't afford to live there now. I struggled then. But the rent, there's no way I could afford to pay rent in East London like I used to.

But some of the advantages, some of the things I liked was the anonymity. You know, it's nice. I thought it was nice to be able to walk around.

No one knows who you are. Don't have to stop and talk to anyone. I mean, that does change over time.

I did get to know some people, you know, because I was there for a long time. So I did. There were some people I would stop and say hello to.

But even when I was in the West End, I'd bump into people that I knew. But generally, unless I went to a comedy club, I didn't really get to see anyone that I knew outside of work. Another thing I liked is and again, we're going back to the 90s.

And I left in 2004. I moved there in 89. I came back for a while.

Then I went back again January 91. And then I was there till September 2001. So 12 years, give or take a few months, because I was there from 89 to about March 1990.

So I had April, so May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, I had about eight months out of London, then I went back. Yeah, one of the things I liked, because back then, I had very little amount of money. But you know, providing I accepted the fact that I couldn't spend anything, I could, I could have the day out.

All I needed was a travel card. And a few quid for a McDonald's. That was it.

You know, so for the 10 quid, probably less than 10 quid, like three quid for the travel card. And then probably another three pound for a McDonald's for like six pound, I can have a day out. And I could go to the museums, I could go for a walk, go around, excuse me, go into the bookshops, have a look around, I could go into a walk around Soho, go to Trafalgar Square, go into Leicester Square, and look at you're going to the record shops, go to some of the parks.

So there's a lot of stuff to do that's free. And then maybe in the evening, go to a comedy club, have a couple of cokes, a couple of like drinks of coke. So it's like a pound each or something.

And then come home. So I do that all have a day and a night out for like 10 quid. A very cheap night out.

But it was still it was still doing something. There's so much to do here. I mean, even in London, it wouldn't be like that now is probably cost.

I don't know how much a travel card is anymore. Should we check it? How much a travel card? London travel card. Cost travel card cost family.

All three tickets give you the freedom to explore London using the city integrated public transport network. Buses cost just £1.75 for unlimited journeys within a hour and adult off peak pay as you go fares into central London start at £2.80. Because I don't know if they still use Oyster cards today. Do they still use Oyster cards? Last that is it's always the London pass.

Travel cards and group tickets. Let's have a look. How much is they? So all these things come up.

Do you accept the cookies? Do you accept the cookies? They said no to a cookie in my life. And there's one so fat. They any time travel.

You think they'd have a price when you price price cost of travel one to six. No way. No way.

Wow. Okay. The paper off peak one day travel card for zone one to six.

So basically means you can go anywhere on the underground. £15.90. And from the second of March, which is now it's gone. So it's actually £16.60 now.

This is expensive. It says here. Yeah, I agree with you.

But still cheaper than paying the full cash fare for three underground trips in central London. You're joking. So one journey if you don't get a travel card, one journey is £6.00. No, £7.00. If you just do one journey.

So you're telling me if I go from Stratford to Liverpool Street, £7.00 or Bethnal Green to Mile End, which I think is just one stop. £7.00. It used to be £2.90 for I'm pretty sure it's one one to six. London travel card costs one to six.

£19.90. UK. Let's have a look. Oh, let's have a look.

£19.90. He's going to give me the right £19.90 to present. Here we go. Caps and travel card prices.

Compare the tubes and fares transport of London videos. Oh, come on London travel card trip tickets. London tube tickets from the 80s reveal how much fares.

Okay, here we go. This is an article though in the Metro. Okay, whether you love it or hate it, the tube has been a fundamental part of life in the capital since it opened more than 160 years ago.

You'd think they'd got their money back by now, wouldn't you? Their money. I mean, they can't still be paying for the cost of building the thing. When you think that probably three, four generations have gone by since then.

A London, a London discovered a 1988 London Undercard travel card when going through their parents old books. And one to three for one day, two pound. Yeah.

So today's 50 while it's now 16 pound or whatever. Blimey. So even when I left, it was probably four or five, five pound or six pound for travel card when I left in 2001.

But it's gone up a lot. I'm pretty sure it was like 220 or something in 250 in 1991. And then it went up, there was a point when it's about 290.

I just remember that because that was my hourly wage in my job at the time. Two pound 90. And wow, I've actually got a travel card in one of my books in that bookcase.

And it's from I think it's from 20 odd years ago, maybe longer 30 years ago. Just because that's what I used to do. I buy a book in London.

I lived in London. So that's where I bought my books. I buy a book.

And I'd use the travel card as a page marker or whatever you want to call it. Because I'd be reading the book on the train on the tube. Or maybe I'd start reading it at McDonald's opposite the park, Hyde Park.

It's yeah. And I'd use it as a bookmark for perhaps the whole of the time I was reading the book. And then maybe I didn't use it for another book.

And yeah. I must I don't think I chucked it away. So it's probably still in there somewhere in one of those books over there behind me.

But I haven't gone to London and bought any books since probably the last time I went to London to buy books was probably 2007 I reckon. Yeah, I don't think I mean, that's probably not true. But he's making some noise.

And there was a time I used to go to Yeah, when I was working in the insurance job. I go to London on a day when I got paid, I'd go to London on a Saturday. If I had the day off.

And then I would buy like, I mean, once I spent 250 pound on books. And they were heavy books, like some of them were like 40 5060 quid each. Some of them weren't.

But it was they were all like textbooks, hypnosis textbooks. And I said, give you an idea. I've got some just over there and I could show you.

But I can't be bothered. It means reaching over. That's too much work.

What is he doing? He's trying to do something over there. Behind me is looking at something. It's not eating his dinner yet.

His dinner has been out for hours. He's had sausage, he's had treats. He's had all kinds of stuff.

But he's not eating what he should be eating. I'm very disappointed in him. Very disappointed indeed.

So yeah, I, I miss that. I still love going to London and just because I wouldn't go anywhere really. You know, when I went to the bookshops, that's why we go there.

I might go and visit the comedy club. And I might also go there in the evening, which actually I probably regularly did. Or I'd stay at my friend's flat.

And stay over the weekend, and come back Sunday evening, or Sunday afternoon. So I'd start go to the comedy club in the evening on a Saturday. Sometimes it'd be Friday.

So if I if I finish work at like six o'clock on a Friday, and I didn't work again till Monday, I might go straight to London. I don't know what Vinnie's after. Let's see if this is what he wants.

Do you want that? Do you want that, Vinnie? Do you want that? I'm gonna chuck it. Oh, it's a yes, he did want it. Okay, these are bits of food.

That's just what it is, it's food. It's dry food. Mmm.

So yeah, I haven't done that for years. Something I used to look forward to. I've done a lot of things really for a long time.

Another one. Ready? Ready? He's caught it. So I thought that went over the sofa.

Always come back for more. Another one. Ready? I'm quite a good aimer, considering I'm doing it from behind me.

Or chucking it behind me. I wonder if there's any others. I think that's it.

Unless I get up and go through the bag and get him some more. So, with my podcast yesterday, I use this Orphonic. It's A-U-P-H-O-N-I-C.

It's Orphonic Productions. And it came out good. I mean, you know, as far as compared to what it was before, it's amazing, the sound.

No background sound. But some of the words were missing. Some of the words were just like cut off short, which they must have thought was just background sound and noise, which is a little bit insulting when they think that me talking is background noise.

Stuff that I'd, why would I want my words to be taken out? What Vinnie? Well, I went, I sat on a quick little break then. Seamlessly, it was integrated into the video. I had to have a little break and what he wanted was, I don't know if you can see behind me, there's a plate on the sofa now.

That was, I had a sausage ciabatta, ciabatta. And I cooked it myself, not the ciabatta, that was already prepared. I gave him some sausage.

This sounds weird. I gave him a bit of sausage. But now he wants to eat the bread and he doesn't normally like bread.

That's like the opposite to what he likes. So I don't, I don't understand. It's probably just the lard from the sausages, probably the grease.

So just sort of as an example, if I just grab them books from over there while I was up. These are some of the books that I was getting. From like this is old, to be fair, clinical hypnosis.

And this is an old book. Looks secondhand as well, actually. So probably this I probably got this one off online.

This kind of books I would have got. This is what year was this? 1984. Okay, 1984.

So I suppose is that old now? I don't know. So all this kind of stuff. I still love this, love these.

I don't know why. So this is this lot of old books. This would have cost probably I don't know how much it would have cost new.

Probably that was loud on it probably 30 40 quid. This is another one. This is quite expensive.

It's called was it the Oxford Handbook of hypnosis. And I don't know what the age or the year is of this one. 2007.

Oh, no. 2008. Okay, so I don't know how much this cost because it hasn't got a price on it.

I haven't got a price on the insides. With foils, quite often they'd actually have the price in pencil written on the inside. If you don't know what foils is, it's a very, very, well, I don't know if it's even still there.

There's a very famous bookshop. Very famous, worldwide famous. So that's that one.

That's a lot of pages in this one. Nearly over nearly 800 pages. So now another one.

Get rid of the dust. What's this called? Handbook of clinical hypnosis. This is a big old thing.

Again, I don't have a price on this one either. So I've got no idea how much this cost. This was first printed 93.

But this was the 97 version. And there are just over 700 pages on that one. Blimey, I wonder how much that was.

Did I ever tell you a time that I got in trouble for shoplifting? Here's another one. I know some of you are probably thinking, wow, been listening to you for years and for the first time you said something mildly interesting. Can you get on with it? Can you tell us? So this one called Handbook of clinical hypnosis.

Wait a minute, is that the same book? Is that the same people? Oh dear. Oh, that's a little bit unfortunate. I've got two books.

This is just a different version. What version is this then? This is the 2014 version. This is the 2017 version, I think.

So it will be different. There'll be updates and stuff like that. And they probably missed stuff out.

That's that's how to get here. Different covers, different colors, different covers. I did say different covers to start with then different colors.

Then I thought, did I say different colors twice? So I said different covers. And I said it like seven times. Doesn't look like the same book, does it? At all.

Unless of course, you read the title. Then maybe it does. I've never been so angry.

I've got itchy beard. My beard's grown back and starting to be a little bit... He's eating his dinner. I put his bowl down there and he's actually eating it.

I've never been... This is the happiest moment of my life. Oh, the bliss. I've been trying to get to his dinner for hours.

Nope, yep, yep, he's eating it. He turned away for a minute and he thought, no, better eat it. I think he prepares his poos in advance.

He's like, well, I've had a poo earlier. I'm going to have to have another one in the morning. How am I going to have a poo if I don't have any food now? That's how I think.

Maybe that's not how he thinks. Maybe not. So I did this recording last night and you want to know about the arrest.

Okay, I wasn't actually arrested. I went into a bookshop. This is when I didn't live in London.

I think I must have gone in at the end of the month, bought some books and then went back in the end of the next month. I went to the same bookshop. I probably went into multiple bookshops.

There was books, etc. There was Blackwell's. There was Foyle's.

What's the other one? Books, etc. Waterstones. Yeah, so there's four.

I'm sure there's another one as well. Blackstones is definitely more textbook kind of place. Foyle's, everything.

It's like if there was a subject, you could find a book on it in Foyle's. And there was books in there that hadn't been touched for decades. Like literally, they just had different sections and some of the sections just had not.

They're just not touched. I mean, in the early 90s, I was going in there and buying Buddhist books. And it was stuff in there that thousands of years old.

It's amazing. Had to break through cobwebs just to get into there. So it's quite cool.

No security system. No, nothing like that. Just trust.

No barcodes, everything was just like written on the thing. And you go in and say, Oh, so you take a take a razor with you and rub it out and got to do it properly. Otherwise, you might end up paying more.

Yeah. So what you did, what what happened is, I went back to this bookshop. I think it was books, etc.

And I just went in there, had a look around. Didn't see anything I wanted came out again. Sometimes I go in and out the same bookshops a couple of times before I decided because I knew how to carry them home.

So I'd kind of maneuver my my strategy. Other times, I'd go in on a Saturday and I would purchase the stuff on a Sunday afternoon. Knowing that I just go to go to Tottenham Court Road tube station, get the books and then go to Liverpool Street station on the tube.

So it's less travel time, less less traveling and carrying. Then just get on the train back to where I was living. And then get a taxi home.

So it was all quite easy. On this occasion, a security guard came up to me and stopped me. I said, What are you doing? He said, I'm stopping you.

I said, Well, I kind of figured that bit out. But what? Why are you stopping me? Do you like me or something? You want to ask me out for a date? That didn't go down well. And he said, I believe you've stolen a book.

I said, Why? He said, you set the alarm off. I said, What? He said, You set the alarm off. Because that's when they started putting those alarm things.

You know, the scanner things. And like, what do you mean I set the alarm off? I said, I've not bought any books. He said, I'm going to need to take you into the back.

He wouldn't check my bags. And I said, Oh, I've got a bag and he Yeah, I showed him inside the bag. And I had a couple of books.

And he decided that I'd stolen those books. And I said, Well, it's not making no sense. I bought these before.

He said, I'm not stolen them. I don't need to steal books. I've never stolen a book in my life.

He said, But you have stolen other stuff, haven't you? I said, Well, chocolate bars, but I was young. He said, A thief is a thief. So I kind of knew that would come to bite me on the bum.

And he said, I'm not buying you anyway, mate. I forgot you're listening. And he said, It was embarrassing.

Bearing in mind the only two places that I ever felt at home. Really? I would say possibly in my entire life, technically, maybe was a comedy club or one particular comedy club. But I felt at home in comedy clubs, but one particular place.

And bookshops, the bookshops in London, I love the bookshops in London, always felt at home, could relax. And just spend hours in there if I wanted to read a book, just whatever. And suddenly, after years and years and years and years and years, because this was probably about 2003, 2004, maybe even 2005.

So this this was a, you know, I've been shopping in these London books shops since 1989. I bought hundreds of books from those shops over the years, hundreds. I was like, this isn't good.

This is beyond embarrassment. And his bib went off, you know, that's how you wear when you're eating, isn't it? If you're too, or messy. The he did the scanner thing.

And it went off. And he said, Come this way, please. He went to grab me.

It's like, all right, mate, calm down. This is a book. And I mean, even if I have tried to steal a book, it's a book.

It's not really worth aggression over not really. You know, it's not it's not a bank heist, my friend. So it was embarrassing.

So it wasn't just him, another security guard turned up and stood behind me over a book, which they weren't even this kind of size books, probably 10, 12 pounds. Maybe 15 pounds for the book. They weren't expensive books.

So I'm saying a lot of hypnosis books are quite expensive because the textbooks they're very. So this kind of stuff, they're not going to sell millions of these just as a fact. So that's why they have to charge sort of 60 quid for them.

Because that's the only way they're gonna make up the money or make any money. I say 60 it might have been less. But it wasn't even like a super expensive book.

So I think that's a lot of money for a book 60 quid. I do personally. And so I got escorted, escorted, I got escorted.

And why did I have the other half? It's like they walked me through all the different floors, through all the different aisles to the office like not a straight line. I realized there's bookcases in the way fair enough. But can add a trapdoor in the floor just to sort of take me underneath or something.

It's very embarrassing. And before we even got there, right? At the door. He said, that's, that's, you know, that's buzzing.

I said, I bought that last week from here. He said, Have you got to see I said no. So he didn't believe me.

I said I come in here. I mean, come in here for years and years. I've spent I don't want to imagine how much money I spent on books over the time.

A lot of money. 1000s on books over like the decades. 1000s and 1000s.

And because that was kind of my main hobby in a way like buying and reading books over my childhood and adulthood. Until more recently. When I became illiterate again.

Why is literacy such a hard word to spell? I escorted they escorted me to this back room, which is ironic because it's not ironic really, but tiny little room, tiny, massive store, tiny little room, smaller than a toilet. In fact, they had a toilet which was bigger, like a public toilet being for people, customers. I feel like saying why don't you focus on what people are doing inside those toilets, as opposed to what's inside my bag?

He said, What do you mean? I said, You really don't know what people get up to in there? No, what are you talking about? I said, Well, you need to stick some cameras in there.

That's illegal. Okay, yeah, fair enough. But maybe have a bit more awareness of who's going in there.

You know, if someone's going in there, and they're all like fine, and they come out and they're like, grouped over and they're like, and there's a chance they've been doing something. And when two people, two people go in, and only one comes out, they've been up to something. When you go in there, there's no one in there.

They've been eating each other. And I didn't say that. Or putting them somewhere else.

So I said I bought it. When did you buy it? I said, I don't know. Probably last month.

Maybe the month before I can't remember what I've got. You got to remember dates when I buy things. Where's the receipt? I said, You know why I don't have the receipt? He said, Why? I said, I didn't buy it today.

What you carry around receipts for everything you buy for all time. I have to carry out to be pushing a wheelbarrow around or have a lorry follow me full of receipts of stuff that I bought over the last 30 years. Do you would you do that? Do you do that? For some reason, this security guard was not warming to me.

And I got a feeling that a lifelong friendship was not brewing. Luckily, the manager was a bit less of an um, maybe he is a bit, a bit more of a people's person, possibly. I'm trying to think how to word it.

I wasn't happy. I'll be honest, I was not impressed with this whole thing. And the manager came in or the assistant manager, whoever it was.

Bear in mind, I just been walked through and this was a probably quite peak time. On a Saturday afternoon, a lot of people there. I was not honestly that never, never ever been through that in my life.

Apart from when I was at school and police came in and I had to stand up and be told off for stealing from the tuck shop, which you could argue, well, that was you were a thief then? No. Well, yeah, but no, not really. It was I was indoctrinated.

I was seven years old and these couple of kids found the key to the tuck shop, which is where they kept the crisps and the biscuits and the cakes and the chocolates and drinks and stuff. And we just went in there and had a party. A few nights in a row.

And we got caught by the janitor. I think it was or a teacher or something. We got caught.

And the next day, it might have been a Friday. Okay, it doesn't really matter. But the next school day, a policeman turns up and I had to stand up, me and the other two people had to stand up and be lectured about how you're not supposed to take stuff and which is fair, you know, but it was embarrassing.

And I'd like to say, you know, that it really stopped me in my tracks. And I became a law abiding citizen. I'd like to say that.

But no, I did. It was, there was a one time in the co-op when I was eight. And as a supermarket, and I was just waiting to pay for a Mars bar, but I started eating it, because I was hungry.

And there was a big queue and I was about two inches tall. I was being ignored, completely ignored. So in the end, I just finished the Mars bar.

So I was waiting and people just walking past me. I'm waiting to be served waiting to pay at the cashier thing. And there was this, you know, the, whatever they call it, the belt that goes along escalator belt thing.

And that I was being ignored. I didn't know if I should get up and just stand on the table and see me but that seemed a bit excessive. Anyway, how would I reach? And in the end, I just finished the Mars bar, walked to the end, the other end of the, the belt that was moving, you know, moving the people shopping.

And I just left the empty wrapper on there and I just walked out. And as I was sort of, I was just leaving the front door or the exit, I heard someone shout out, who's that? Who put that empty Mars bar wrapper on there? Actually, all I heard was, who put that empty Mars? And I couldn't hear anymore because there was traffic outside. But I'm guessing it was like Mars bar wrapper.

And on there, which seems like an obvious thing that might have been said, might not have been. She might have said something completely different. Who put that Mars bar? Oh, there's a squirrel in the ceiling.

Yeah, who knows? It might have been, she might have got distracted by something else. Or thought about what she's going to have for dinner. I don't know.

I don't know. There's no way of knowing. And I can't go back because it's like over three years ago.

So I'm in this office in the bookshop. Luckily, the manager was friendly. And he said, well, the alarms gone off.

Can we look inside your bag? Because at this point, they'd looked inside and hadn't touched anything. Can we do you mind if you empty your bag so we can, you know, I said, Yeah, it's fine. I don't care.

So it was like a satchel or something. It might be a carrier bag to be fair. It might actually be in a carrier bag with their logo on it.

I should have got a carrier bag with I did not steal anything on it. That would have been better. Please don't embarrass me.

So I got the book, I think there was two books, there might have only been one book. And the person looking at doing the scanning thing was going off. I said, Yeah, but I bought it.

It's my book. I own it. I purchased it probably here.

I mean, to be fair, there's more than one bookshop that I go to, I'll be coming here again. Which wasn't true. I think I did go back.

It's a good bookshop. But they said that the alarms going off the scanners, you know, I said, Well, I can't help that. I purchased the book.

Have you got a receipt? Like, round around around? I said, Look, I think I'm the book said, if I just if I just stolen it right now, how come I'm up to page 420? And I opened the page. And the manager, his eyes opened wide. And I thought, I've impressed him with how much I've read.

It wasn't. And basically, I'd been using the barcode security tab as a page stopper, or, you know, page mark, bookmark. So there's a thing that was on the back of the book, when I bought it, probably stuck to it.

The person who sold it to me didn't take it off or didn't like, you know, cancel the barcode or the security tab. So the alarm probably went off when I bought it originally. But there was no security around or was too busy or who knows why.

And they said, Well, still got a security tab on it is from here. So how do we know it's been paid for? I said, Well, unless I'm the fastest reader in the entire world. He said, Look, you could have just put it in that page doesn't mean you've read it.

I said, well, test me. He said, Really? I said, Yeah, open open any page before that number was in any page and start reading something. He said, Alright, then.

So he opened it up. And this is some kind of thing he said. So having observed a rather fatalistic view of B2, Bill may then strongly suggest to himself that he may have been a coward in the past, telling himself that he will never be able to do anything about John's behavior, and therefore concludes at blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And he's reading away. And he looks up to me said, So what? What are you doing? You want me to stop reading? And you're going to continue and tell me what it says? I said, No. Why am I reading it for them? So I don't know.

I just saw on a film once. So how does that prove that you've read it? I said it doesn't really I just I didn't. Yeah, I couldn't wasn't wasn't really paying much attention to the movie.

But I think that might have involved me finishing a sentence or something. But I've read it. What was it about? It's about hypnosis.

So yeah, that didn't go down well. So it was like a very kind of a difficult situation because I looked like a thief. I was starting to feel like a thief.

I started to think, well, am I a thief? Am I one of those dodgy weirdos that steal without even knowing they're doing it? You know, like celebrities suddenly get stopped by security out of a supermarket and they've got a bottle of wine on them. They didn't realize they had it. Yet they're multi millionaires.

Like why are they even why would they even steal cheap wine? Let alone? Why would they? Why would they buy cheap wine if they're rich? But it's not really about wine, is it? So I there's been a few celebrities have done that actually. Was there a celebrity that walked out with clothes? Some movie star that just walked out or walked out with makeup or something out of a store?

Yeah. Never done that.

Never walked out of makeup or clothes. I know people that do. Well, I've known people that do.

They go into a shop. And I basically put clothes to try clothes on and then put their clothes on top of their clothes and walk out. Like, why just just all going to sell them? Yeah, but who's going to want to buy them after you've worn them? What do you mean? Well, they're underpants.

You can't give them back. You can't sell them on. Once you've worn them, they're pretty much ruined.

They have that, you know, they have that says that on the packaging or on the, you know, in the area of the clothes shop, we do not reach you cannot return underwear. Why? That's not fair. It's not, is it? You return everything else.

Why not underwear? So I remember I was looking at some boxer shorts. I think I bought some. I'm not sure.

I think I did. Or there might be the poster. And I said to the lady behind the counter, I said, Can you please go? I like to make a complaint.

And she said, What? I said, I'd like to complain. Could you, your company, you know, because they're quite a big store. And nationwide, I said, Can you please ask your managing director to stop using my photographs in your underwear? adverts? Because a picture of some handsome man with a six pack, you know, with briefs on like posing.

And she found it funny. For some reason. So I didn't know what to do with this bloke.

Like you accused me of stealing, but I haven't been stealing. You accused me, you know, like this is really not good. And he said, we got no receipt.

Why haven't you got a receipt? I said, I've already been through this with monkey head over there. I was like, that didn't go down well either. It's just like, well, you accused me of doing something I haven't done.

I'm going to be defensive. Am I not? Yes, I am. Oh, yeah.

Okay, good. It's true. I am.

Like, I didn't steal anything. All I did was look around the bookshop, decided I didn't want anything and walk out. Now, stopping me and bringing me back, escorted me all the way through the store in front of people is not the best way to keep my custom for future.

And I saw his eyes glaze over when I was talking as I thought, Oh, here we go. Because that used to happen a lot back then. Back then.

And I thought, I'm not going to get this is just ridiculous. Because they were talking about calling the police. Well, if you can't prove it, we're gonna have to call the police.

I said, Have you got got cameras? He said, Yeah. So you can see whether or not I've stolen something. He said, they're not everywhere.

It was kind of stalemate. They wanted proof of purchase. I didn't have proof of purchase.

And then he said, How did you pay for it? I said, What? He said, Did you pay cash? Because I had a computer system. So what happened in the end? Did you hear that? It's like a little burp. I, I said to them, I paid on card paper card, which at that point, everything I did everything by credit card.

And he said, Oh, I said, Yeah. He said, What have you got the card? I said, Yes. So he looked at the book, he could see that there'd been a purchase.

And he could see the credit details, credit card details, only part of the card, but it matched my card. And they said, Sorry, sorry, if you're inconvenienced. Now get out.

I said, I apologize and let me go. But that was horrible. I didn't enjoy it really.

It's really not supposed to be enjoyable experience one to, you know, write poetry and songs about what to celebrate. What are you celebrating? That's the anniversary. It's the 25th anniversary when I accused of stealing a book.

I think I might have some cake. Yeah, some fireworks. So maybe not.

But generally, that's kind of what happened with that. But with the recording, I spent about two hours editing it last night. Because it was so much to do.

I had to cut bits out because there's half of words, half of sentences. In the end. I mean, it's an hour and a half recording.

It took me twice as long as that, like three hours, probably to edit it. And then this morning, I uploaded them and done all that stuff and never again, never gonna go. That's how I used to do things in the old days.

It used to take me forever to edit. Because the microphone was so bad. It was like cutting out and fuzzy and static and feedback and stuff like that.

Now, I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to go through that anymore. So yeah, I'm not going to.

So there probably won't be any more inbeds with JJ's, which I don't know, I quite like it because if I'm in a different environment, even if it is just in a different room, I think a little bit different. When I'm laying down. I got no distractions.

There's nothing to look at. And yeah, just as if I'm walking in the in the field. He heard the word.

And he's noticing his sounds outside. So I'm going to go. Thank you for listening.

Remember to be kind to yourself, because you do deserve to be happy. Lots of love. Bye.

You're waiting to start barking Vinnie, I know you are. Go and bark then if you want. Why are you staring at me? You were listening.

Is it because I said fields, walking in the fields? I think that might be what it was. No, he can hear something. I can hear it as well now.

Maybe someone's at the door. Might be someone in the garden. I did close the window.

Oh well. Anyway. Bye.