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Hello and welcome to Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Today is Monday the 17th of August 2026. Nine days till I'm 56 years old.
56. The only thing I'm looking forward to this month is what happens three days later on Saturday the 29th of August because it's Moses Atalma is fighting Hergovich for the I think it's the IBF world heavyweight title. That's what I'm looking forward to.
And perhaps a bit of rain. A bit of rain! Although I don't know if I really want to be out in the rain. It's much nicer having some coolness.
It's not hot today. I quite like it. So please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.
My website is jasonnewland.com. You can find my recordings on all the major podcast apps. Such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc. What's going on there? Stop it.
The cord to the microphone was moving around. What else? Oh yeah, I also upload my recordings to Instagram and TikTok. I heard a bing.
Did you hear a bing then? Bing! Right, I think that was on my laptop. Ing just commented. Oh, this is on my Facebook page about the book that I'm kind of looking at.
Ing writes, that introduction sounds very authentic and moving. It's really interesting. Keep it up.
Thank you. Maria says, I would be happy, more than happy to buy a copy. Sandy says, I'm so proud of you.
Thank you to both of you. Thank you. Autobiography says Jonathan Shelnut.
Jonathan, sorry. And I said, kind of. And what has he replied? Not about hypnosis, but more your journey.
I just did a thumbs up. So I hope that explains it. I just, I don't really know what it is or whether I'll even do it, to be fair.
Because the problem with things like that is I'm never going to be satisfied with the results. Just because I just think it's very, very difficult to sum up a life in, you know, like 150 pages or whatever, because I wouldn't want to be writing some big, massive, huge book. So to sum up a life in such a small, you know, way, especially when you consider how, how chatty I am and how much I, did you hear the ice cream van?
I don't even notice it anymore.
Well, clearly I noticed it, otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it. But you know, I mean, it's like background sound. Wow.
I'll tell you what. I don't normally, you know, I'm not showing off. I'm not showing off.
But I created a hypnosis recording, a sleep hypnosis recording this morning, and it took over three hours to record. I kept falling asleep while I was doing it. And I ended up with two hours and 25 minutes, I think, of recording.
After I'd edited it, it took hours to edit. And I'm just in the process of uploading it. I've uploaded it to one podcast.
And the main one, but wow. I had to keep repeating myself because I kind of just kept forgetting, I just like didn't know where I was. And like what I said, what I said, did I say that? Didn't I say that? Kept falling asleep.
So editing was difficult. Because you know, it has to kind of has to follow through a bit has to make some kind of sense. Kind of.
But yeah, it's a pretty deep sleep hypnosis session. And I know for a fact, when I come to listen to it myself, I won't be able to stay awake. And I can't defy anyone, or challenge anyone to stay awake listening to it.
Because it's, it's not an easy listen. And it's not difficult to listen to it. You know, it's not like, oh, it's not like you have to concentrate and but just it's, it's, I would say it's very, very difficult to listen to it and not fall asleep.
Which is kind of what all my recordings are supposed to be, generally. But this was, wow. I was surprised at how difficult I mean, I was falling asleep while I was editing it.
And that doesn't normally happen. So still got the dog in the background. And if I will go and close that window, because it's a bit loud, I think with the window open.
See, yeah, I just closed the window to try and reduce the woof woof sound. It does. Anyway, I'm not gonna talk about the dog.
So it's very, very, very, very... Where's that air rifle? The weird thing about it is, on the actual recording, it doesn't come up very high, like loud, because it's so far away. But I can hear it with my ears. And my ears are better than the microphone.
But picking it up, that makes sense. All I can do is hear it. I find it hard to actually talk over it.
Now the only shout and just get it to shut up. It's a lovely dog, though. But I just don't want all my recordings to be focused around someone else's dog.
It's supposed to be about me, me, me. I don't know, when did I last do a recording? Was it Saturday? Was it Friday? I don't know. The last time I did a sleep hypnosis recording was the 8th of August.
So that's a little while. 1664. So I did Let Me Bore You To Sleep number 1664 on the 14th, which is Friday.
So I didn't do a new recording on the 15th, on Saturday or Sunday. What have I been doing? So I looked into the possibility of putting together an app. And this is my idea.
Okay. And it would be using AI to help me to produce the app. And even after like planning it out.
Let's have a look. I can get the miss if I can get the conversation up and I can kind of read some of it back to you. Because I was doing it loud like talking to it and it was talking back to me.
This is a chat GPT chat cheap. Still can't say it chat GPT. What can they given a better name than that? Just like chatty or I don't know something a bit more.
The GPT GPT. Anyway, let's have a look. App app plan.
So I had this quite a long conversation with it about this. And so start talking about the app. My idea is this.
Have an app on you know the iPhone or Android or whatever. iPad wherever you use your apps where you could technically listen to all my recordings. So I probably start off just doing the Let Me Bore You To Sleep to start with.
But maybe do it so you can also listen to the hypnosis stuff as well. So if a basic just on the Let Me Bore You To Sleep. One of the problems is the amount of recordings I've got.
It was such a huge library. A back library, including all the different versions, the links and stuff, which makes it very complicated. And.
So my idea was to have upload one recording. Every time. And then the app could make it to the length that you want.
So you could say, you know. If you want it for two hours, three hours, five hours, maybe you want it to just. Go on for an hour and then just go down like cut out or phase out.
So then. I'd have it set up so that my other stuff would continue with it. You know, to make it 10 hours, so it do all that for me.
I would just upload one recording to the server. And then the music. I thought it'd be good if people could choose the music they want.
Or AI. Produces the music, creates the music. The background music that is.
To go with the, you know, with the recording so. Give you the choice of how and also you can choose the speed of the recording and all those things. And.
There'd have to be a cost for it because it's it would cost an absolute fortune. I didn't realize how much it would cost to get it done, but. I went into that and.
What's this say? I just want to read this bit out because that's the bit that got me thinking. Right. So saying, oh.
Yeah. It's saying to me basically. To get it going and to get an app developer.
To kind of so just, you know, to do it would cost anything up to 100,000 pounds. Uh. So that's like, well, that's not going to happen.
But. The AI was talking to me and saying, well, one of the things I've got that are probably nearly. Not no one, but most people don't have is the back catalog.
Most podcasters or hypnotist or whatever don't have thousands of recordings. So it's kind of. There's the advantage of that.
But also, I was thinking what I'd quite like to do is because I've cloned my voice. And the cloning is getting better and better. I use 11 labs, so I've got my voice already done.
And it can be improved. You know, they're always improving it in a few years time. You probably wouldn't even tell the difference between me talking and the clone.
So then that gives the opportunity for people to just say, well. What do you want the recording to be? Relaxation, sleep recording, how long? Two hours, 10 hours. And with music, without music, any particular subject, beach, rainforest, you know, whatever.
And then just. Just play around with the with the fate, you know, like what kind of stuff you want to do? I don't know. I've not really thought about it too much, but.
And you could go like level of hypnoticness or level of deepness. Do you want to include a body scan? Do you know, just click what you want? And then the AI would create that using my voice. Which again would cost money every time it was used.
Every time that was that system was was used, it would cost money. I don't know how much money and I don't even know. If it's possible to do it now, it might well be.
But it's out of my. Out of my knowledge base, most things are out of my knowledge base, really. That definitely is.
But the idea like. Using Chet GPT, I thought that they could just build it for me. Build the app, build it.
I tell you what I want and you just build it. I genuinely thought that that was. What I could do.
And I was a little bit wrong. Because. What I'm trying to put together is a very complicated thing.
Even if I didn't go down a road of using my voice, you know, doing the cloned voice. Although that I think that would open up possibilities. Tremendous possibilities in the future.
But if I just stuck to. My original recordings that I've already done. And I was talking about the clone voice.
I'm talking about hypnosis recordings for that. Not the Let Me Bore You To Sleep. That's got to be me.
You know that that's got to come from me. Not the only time I would use AI to do it. Use my voice clone voice for Let Me Bore You To Sleep is if I. Didn't have my own voice anymore for whatever reason.
Then. I would write the script, maybe type it out. And then, you know, use my.
My cloned voice to speak out loud what I'd was thinking. That makes sense. But outside of that, I wouldn't use my clone voice, you know, for Let Me Bore You To Sleep.
You guys talk about a subject. I mean, I guess it could given all the scripts and all the transcripts that I've done. Uploaded.
It's got 350 out of 1600. So far, it could probably put together. It's got an idea of me as a person.
So I use chat GPT every day. When it comes to medical stuff, I go on there. And I don't just.
I don't just go by what it says and and, you know. Then. Don't go to the doctor, still, you know, I still go down the correct path.
But I mean, just now, what a few hours ago. So my my blood test results came back and I looked at them. I don't know.
Is it things Friday? And. Yes, Friday. And my blood sugar level was high.
And it was the second it was the retake test. So because the previous one was high. So I was 54.
This time I was 53. So it's a little bit lower, but it was still. I think anything above 48, I do believe is classed as diabetic.
So I'm thinking, well, what should I do? What should I do? So I phoned them up and they said, oh, no, don't worry about it. Do you? You're with the diabetic nurse now, and they'll contact you. And I'm thinking, well, OK.
Isn't it? I mean, from a human perspective, medical perspective, health perspective, is it quite important that it gets? Looked at like quite quick. Or maybe I'm not at the level where I need I need to worry. I don't know.
I don't know. But I've not received anything from them. And if I hadn't put those results to basically with CHAT GPT, I copied the screen of all the blood test results that I got back, uploaded a chat to CHAT GPT, and it told me exactly what everything meant.
And it said, call the doctor. About the blood sugar level. Which I did, and they seemed less.
CHAT GPT is more, he cares more about me than my own doctor surgery, I'm shocked. See, I know not everyone probably is a fan of AI. I say probably I know I know people that aren't.
It's helped me out so much. The little things. So we had a power.
Now I woke up one morning. And there was no lights on. It was the middle of the night.
It was like five or whatever. No lights on. And I'm like, oh.
Is it power cut? I don't know. I don't know what's going on. So I go into the storage room.
That's where the meter is, or the, you know, the power thing where all the different buttons are. There's a technical term for that, but I'm not an electrician. Is it the power board or something? And there's a light in the storage room that actually works, which is weird.
I don't know how that works when all the other stuff's cut off. But anyway, I discovered that about three years ago. So I was living here for eight years.
Fiddling around in the dark with a torch, trying to figure out what's going on in the on the power board and which switches have gone off or whatever. And all I had to do is just turn the light on. It's crazy.
I just didn't know. I just figured if all the other lights are off, that's going to be off too. But it wasn't.
Anyway, so what I did this time, and there's a new board up because they when they put in the new meter, I think they know they put a new board up. I don't know why. I think it might be to do with the solar paneling on the roof because they came in.
I think they put some new stuff up then. Anyway, I didn't know what I was looking at. So all I did, right, I took a picture of the board.
All the buttons up, down, whichever. I didn't say anything, but just uploaded it to chat GPT. Didn't say please help.
Didn't say the lights are off. Nothing. I just uploaded it.
And he said exactly what was going on. He said whatever switches flipped, flipped and switched or flipped or whatever. And he told me and it like an arrow and everything said exactly what I had to do.
Which took a second to like just push one up and the whole thing came back on. I genuinely didn't know what to do because it changed. They changed the whole board, the whole thing.
So it used to be on the right hand side and now it's changed. And I oh. Because I used to have this situation where I can never seem to operate.
The toaster and the kettle at the same time. Without tripping a switch. I was like this is ridiculous and I didn't know which was doing what.
Was it the kettle? Was it the toaster? Was it the fact that maybe it was just that plug? So I was using the two sockets. It's a two socket thing on the wall. And here's a question.
Why do people in other countries still have those two pin sockets like plugs? Two pin plugs that can just fall out. I don't know if they fall out in America or but. I've been to places where they just literally they're not tight at all.
Here our plugs are tight. You push them in. They're solid.
You know, but those ones like. It just seems weird. Please sort it out.
Whoever you are. I wouldn't want one of them. Two plug no.
Two thong plugs is it two plug thongs not a thong you know. To Vinnie can you make a bit more noise please licking yourself. Thank you.
I was so tired making that recording this morning. Genuinely it fried my mind. It just.
It's really hard to focus and fall asleep at the same time and talk. I can't even do a Let Me Bore You To Sleep. When I'm like super tired because I just know nothing happens.
My brain just doesn't function. Yeah. What's very interesting was it.
Some would argue slightly boring slightly boring. Boring. It's so you hear the sound he's making I don't know if you can hear it.
But he's you know he's giving himself a bath. A strip bath or whatever you want to call it. A bed bath and.
Sometimes I've been here and I'm like I'll do a hypnosis recording. And he's being nice and quiet and he's just laying on the sofa. So I won't put him into the bedroom.
And he starts licking himself. And regardless of whether or not you can hear him. I can hear him and it's very distracting for me.
Because it's all I can hear. Literally apart from my own voice there's no other sounds. Until the dog starts barking again.
As well. Come on man. Really.
I know Vinnie I'm not jealous. No matter how many times you say it I'm not. There was something I was going to talk about and I ended up not talking about it on Friday.
Was it the doctors? I went to the doctors. It's kind of weird because I went to the doctors and this is on Wednesday I think. Got a taxi there got a taxi back.
It was a lovely day. It was warm but it was just quite a kind of bit of breeze you know. It was nice.
And went into the supermarket got a few little bits and bobs as well. Before getting the taxi back. And.
Yeah the nurse said to me. Have you been drinking? Do you drink enough water? I don't know. I don't know what enough is.
I said well I do drink water. Because she was struggling to get a vein from my left arm. I said well I've not ever really had a veiny body really.
Do you know I'm not I've never had those kind of muscles with bulging veins. Just never have I just doesn't it's not the kind of body I've got. And she ended up doing it in my right arm.
And it's really weird because I've got a bruise there still. What is it Monday's it's nearly a week still got a bit of a bruise. I'm realizing that my skin is getting old.
I'm going to be. I imagine I'm going to end up like being like I bash myself and I've got a massive bruise. Like what? Because I've not got to that stage yet.
But it looks like a hickey. It's like something's giving me a love bite on my the inner part of the elbow. The inner is it the inner elbow you know when you when you close your arm.
The opposite to the elbow the inner the inner arm. Anyway when I get out of there and I go to the reception because I need to. What do I need to do with a reception? Oh yeah oh yeah that's it.
And anyway I'm talking to the receptionist or not actually I'm waiting for the receptionist. There's two people ahead of me and I'm looking at her and I'm thinking hmm. She looks familiar.
Where do I know her from? And so eventually I walk up she said hello next please and I said you look familiar. Where do I know you from? She said yeah you do as well. I said did we used to be married and she said no it turned out she used to work in a supermarket.
And I first met her in about 2007-2008 she used to be in town and I used to go in there quite regularly and I was like wow crazy it's a long time ago isn't it? And yes now she works at the doctor's surgery. That wasn't that story wasn't full of as much I thought it'd be a bit more exciting than that you know when I started out on that story I thought yeah this will go somewhere nice.
This will this will be worth the wait this will be almost this story will make the recording.
In fact I might even create the title around this particular story. But now I've told it I don't think it deserves to be part of the title. And I think all the stuff that I remember or that I did remember from going to the doctor's has almost kind of been forgotten now because I left it too late.
I should have talked about it after it happened. I think I did mention it a little bit but just trying to think back I mean Vinnie was pretty good he did howl for I think 10 minutes which is 10 minutes too long but it was it was more crying than howling. He just doesn't like being left alone.
I'm wondering though that if I leave him in the bedroom on the bed he might not be that as bothered as he is me leaving him in the living room because he loves the bed he loves going to sleep and he probably just go to sleep for two hours two or three hours and not even notice I'm not there. Because if I had that door open he'd probably be in the bedroom now.
He loves the bed really really loves the bed really really really do we love the bed yeah we do.
I don't know what's going on with the internet at the moment but it's literally taken absolutely ages to upload my recordings my new hypnosis recording and I'm not even sure if it's all been uploaded properly has it been nope it hasn't one still hasn't been uploaded there and on the other podcast let's have a look one okay yeah so only one hasn't uploaded so it's gone quite well but it took absolutely yonks and yonks and yonks so check speed see do that again I went online to try and find um
did I tell you I'm getting like 18 megabytes that's ridiculous I phoned up my broadband provider I think it was Friday and it turns out that they don't even service this area I said what do you mean you don't service this area I live here you took me on as a customer three four years ago he said yeah but if you came in as a new customer and wanted um broadband where you live would turn you down I said what that doesn't even make sense how can you charge me for
my broadband I mean I'm going I'm getting broadband it's just not very fast and he said oh we don't have any control over the um this the the masts or whatever so they've got no control so it's really a case of potluck whether or not you actually get anything get get a service I'm like this is ridiculous and he said yeah but good thing is if you want I can get you a cheaper price I can get it for you 10 pound cheaper a month I said okay and he said
that'll be a 24 year 24 let me say 24 year a 24 month contract so you're telling me because I'm out of contract now so you're telling me that you wouldn't take new customers on but you'll give me a new contract for a service that you can't guarantee that isn't very good he said yeah you got it in one baby it's like really it does not make any sense at all so I started going online trying to find a broadband that I could change it see what I've done is I
brought the broadband the whatever you call it the hub instead of being on my windowsill I've moved it right near the computer and it seems to be working better than it did on a windowsill which doesn't make any sense to me I mean maybe it's that huge tree that's blocking the signal I don't know all I know is when I'm watching Netflix or YouTube on television I shouldn't ever get buffering in fact I would argue that nobody should ever see the buffering sign because this isn't dial-up you know there was
a time when getting two megabytes a second was it was exciting you know to be able to wow you know you could actually download a picture in less than a minute it's exciting stuff broadband was still small and very slow but it was still brilliant compared to dial-up because I remember dial-up you could never would have been able to stream movies or anything like that with dial-up not the old dial-up anyway maybe maybe dial-up still exists so I don't know if it does I'm sure it's a lot better than it
used to be I remember that do do do do do do do I used to love that sound the sound of it the sound of success that was online and I could explore the world because I loved the internet when I first discovered it I mean I didn't discover it I didn't actually discover the internet but when I first found out about it at first I thought oh what a pile of crap because it just didn't interest me because I thought oh it's just sending emails and like oh boring boring
and so much it was just text on a screen but then I don't know it caught me in its net and I became fascinated by it and then so like 98, 99 I was you know I was watching I was on the internet a lot and then 2000 I started actually building websites so I became even more obsessed I was obsessed for a while about a year and a half and I loved it and I wish you know in a way I mean life kind of stopped it from happening but
I wish I could have pursued it maybe because I loved it so much and I was willing to spend every minute of the day I imagine I'd have been quite a good employee even though I didn't have the skills necessarily I was willing to learn the skills and I reckon for a lot of employers that dedication is worth a lot because I lived it and you know what I don't talk about this enough really but I don't I'm not I'm not embarrassed but when I first started doing insurance it was
my life it became my life to the point where I did have a social life as well both were people I worked with but I actually got to the point where I would go into work early to get more sales and when I wasn't at work when I was at home weekends stuff like that I'd be reading sales books because I had a sales job so I was reading sales books or listening to sales audio tapes things like Zig Ziglar and Anthony Robbins and yeah I just really got into that
but I'd already been listening to those recordings back in the 90s I'd already been reading sales books from the early 90s no in fact the late 80s wow because I had this dream right I had a dream when I was about 18 well I was 18 not about I was literally 18 this is the summer of my 18th year I was a canvasser so I was knocking on people's doors for a double glazing company I was in a little team became really good friends with them and my boss Jeff he's
long gone now but he used to drive us around and there was just three of us and and my boss and we would go out for I think we go out about half four until about seven so we probably do about three hours at least at the most three hours a day two and a half three hours and I think our basic I think it was 120 a week and then we would get paid bonuses for if if they got their foot in the door so we we would get I'd
get telephone numbers from people and the address and their name from people that were interested in maybe getting some new double glazing or a conservatory or a new front door you know that sort of stuff and it's for a building firm so they did windows but they also did other stuff so that was the job or our job was to knock on the front doors they were very specific about that after the event with the back door but let's not talk about that and just introduce myself hello my name's Jason
I'm from C&R or C&B or A&L or whatever windows double glazing and I just I'd like to see an enactment of me you know just what I was like back then because I was very I was quite outgoing during that summer possibly going through a bit of a manic period but I was also enjoying myself and it was the first summer that I'd enjoyed myself as an adult well I hadn't been an adult for long but the first so when I was 15 that summer was working I was kind of
like yeah living on the sofa so that was a bit of a rubbish summer 16 so I was working the chip shop then I was 16 summer working a chip shop 17 the summer and again working in a what's it the other co-op so I had three summers that weren't you know particularly great but my my 18th you know in 1989 not the whole summer but part of the summer Vinnie stop chasing the flies because you're making noise don't look at me like don't don't okay carry on Mr floppy ears
Mr floppy floppy floppy ears the beginning of the summer wasn't great to be honest but then um I went to Spain no France rather I went I did I went to Spain first for the afternoon then I went to France for a little while for five or six days and then I got that job as a canvasser for the double glazing that period of time was really good I enjoyed myself yeah it was the first memorable summer as an adult I mean you know since I left school although I actually
did quite like the summer of 1990 because because we all got laid off from the counselling and canvassing sorry in about um I think it was October maybe September October time and because they decided just to put money into advertising on the radio and stuff are you enjoying that Vinnie so I moved to London and I got a phone call from my friend who was canvassing to you know my canvassing friend and he said oh we've started back again so this was in I think the April of the next year
1990 and he said just call Jeff up and because Jeff asked where you were and you can start back so I called Jeff up he said yeah come come back and you can start Monday so this was on the Friday evening phoned my dad up and he my dad said you can stay here for a bit so I moved because I was earning like 100 pound a week in a really grotty job eight hours a day in a fridge basically big fridge and I was going to end I was going
to be getting paid pretty much twice that because you know with the bonuses and stuff it probably would come up to nearly 200 but at least 150 160 a week for three hours an evening so 15 hours a week so for 15 hours a week instead of 40 hours a week I kind of like yeah fair enough I realized it wasn't necessarily going to be very stable because you know and it's with different companies not the same company as before so we were actually canvassing for three different companies and we
were all supposed to be out for six hours a day for each company the companies didn't know about each other if that makes sense I found out this a bit later on so we were getting paid for 15 hours when we should have been doing six what six hours a day six twelve eighteen hours we should have been doing 18 hours a day technically but we were doing three hours a day but we were quite good so we got we obviously they must be happy because they were getting sales so
we'd get a bonus if they were able to get into the house to see the customer potential customer and if they sold something then we get a bonus as well on top of that so that was all right so I enjoyed that summer in 1990 I also I decided that I knew that I couldn't rely upon that because of what happened the previous year you know it came to an end no notice last time it was literally the Friday or Thursday yeah we finished and that was it no more money
so I didn't want to really depend upon that plus I had decided I was moving back to London to pursue comedy even though I just moved away from London I don't always do things in the right order to be honest so then what I did is I applied for a night shift job in the meter factory where I'd already worked twice before and left twice before without giving any notice just not turned up and they still gave me a job I it's just I didn't think I stood a chance of
getting the job but they did they gave me the job and it's night shift so I could still do the canvassing in the early evening or the late afternoon so I was doing the canvassing from I think it was four to seven so I was getting up about I was going I was working from 10 in the evening to six in the morning I'd get home half six have my breakfast go to bed about seven yeah I'd get up about two so about seven hours sleep maybe six hours sleep seven
and then I'd get picked up at four o'clock and I'd finish at seven and then I'd go home a couple of hours and then I'd leave off half an hour before the half past nine to get to the place where I was working so I did that for I think a couple of months and it was very tiring you know it was just they just work all the time and so I quit the canvassing I just couldn't do I mean technically the canvassing I was getting more money from that in
a sense of you know the small amount of hours and what I was getting for just three hours a day was really good but I actually liked the job I had in the factory because it's night shift which suited me really well I liked the people I was working with I liked the job itself because it was I wasn't like lugging about and bending around putting meters in boxes anymore I was doing more of the technical stuff like taking meters apart and putting them together and you know checking for faults
and stuff like that so I enjoyed that job and it's very clean you know because it's very static free so it's a very clean environment and yeah I do the occasional Saturday morning overtime if they asked and I remember I used to considering I was planning to move back to London which I did I moved back in January 1991 I made no plans no financial plans I could have saved up thousands of pounds during that year and I wasn't even paying my dad any rent I know it's sad isn't it
I just uh yeah I don't I don't think I was because he was always like well just you know sort out later and he wasn't really bothered so I really could have put away I could have saved when I had both the jobs that probably could have saved a thousand pound a month not easily but at least 500 very easily which is quite a lot of money you know we're talking 1990 like 100 years ago so I think between the two jobs I must have had yeah I must have had
1400 pound coming in 1500 pound a month because I was getting bonuses for the other one so I must have yeah because depart because it's night shift as well I got paid more than a day shift and then as so many other things do it kind of came crashing down because they decided and I don't know why they decided to move me not just me I think well basically they reduced the night shift and I got put on to the double shift you know one week six in the morning till
two in the afternoon the next week two in the afternoon till 10 in the evening now if I'd had my mouth about me I would have just asked to have a change to just to say can I please stay on the night shift I didn't ask I didn't even you know I moaned but I didn't ask and I knew as soon as they changed it that I was going to leave but I knew not I didn't want to leave but I knew and I was still doing the same job as
well it was not like they were changing my job but just doing it during the day but I knew how I was with getting up early in the morning it was not easy not easy to do and to have to not have that stability I realized when I was doing the second insurance job that I was kind of okay with different hours like you know as long as it was the same hours every week so I went through a period when I was doing I was working till nine o'clock every
night it was like one till nine every night every every day Monday to Thursday and then nine till one on a Friday and the weekends off yeah it was all weekends off I think it was so for me that was good because it's you know it was stable I knew where I was I was getting up at the same time every day and that's what I needed in the same way I couldn't have done night shift and then day shift night shift then day shift I needed it just didn't suit
me maybe some other people it could suit them but I needed the same shift pattern every week and I didn't get that with the insurance jobs either I mean luckily I did when that when I because I asked to go on to that late shift you know finishing at nine or was it ten I think it was nine I asked and they because a lot of people didn't want to do that shift because it's mainly young men worked there and they wanted to go out drinking and having fun and whatever
I didn't want to do that so I was happy to do the nine finish it in the evening but all three of the insurance jobs although the hours weren't extremely different you know like six to two and then two to ten wasn't anything quite as bad as that but it was still you know eight o'clock start and nine o'clock finish and various different shifts between that which is not that different in fact there was there'd be a row two of shifts and there'd be like six different shifts and no patterns
and every week would be different for like six weeks which I found very confusing so yeah so I left I remember I had so I moved out of my dad's actually I moved my dad moved from where he was living into where he's living now he's been for a long time and so I helped him move and I was what was I at the time I was 20 just turned 20 I might in fact I might have still been 19 and it might be I think it was like August time
so around this time so I lived there for a few weeks and the plan I didn't realize what the plan was the plan was not for me to live there the plan was for my dad's girlfriend to move in with her kids which is what happened but I I decided to move anyway because I wanted to you have my own space and stuff so I moved into a it's like this studio apartment but it was originally what used to be for holiday makers people that would come on holiday to the
beach and people would stay in there and it'd be I quite liked the room actually you know it's a it's a room I think it even had a chair to sit in TV had beds kitchen bathroom you know it's well well in a way it looked like the inside of a caravan like one of the nice caravans but it was upstairs in a building and I was living there and a couple of things happened while I was there that kind of yeah put me off living there the first thing is
I came home from work one day at this point I was still doing night shift and my landlord was all puffy and puffy and overexcited it's like what's wrong he said I was in bed so I must have oh yeah because I did night shift so I come home like I got home probably half six I think he was waiting for me and uh I said what he said I was in bed last night with my wife about two o'clock in the morning the ceiling caved in us on us and
we got soaking wet and all the plaster came off the ceiling and I said yeah what are you telling me I didn't say what you're telling me but I'm thinking like yes that's nice but you know I've got to go and have some breakfast and he said it's your fault I said what do you mean it's my fault he said your your tap was running because he'd been in the flat and the tap was running I said yeah but I turned the tap off if there's a faulty tap then it's
not my fault so the tap overflowed and he was going on about suing me which made me giggle I mean how are you going to sue how are you going to sue me how's that even I mean I was a teenager I had nothing literally I didn't have any belongings I had a few clothes and he was talking about suing me for something that I hadn't done so he didn't seem to like me anymore after that he was also very short not that that's really relevant but just reminded me of
someone on a tv show that I found a bit weird but it was a Tales of the Unexpected story and to add on to that when they told me at work that my shift was being changed from night shift to move in between you know six till two and then two till ten the following week I wasn't I wasn't best pleased but I went along anyway went along with it did it for a couple of weeks and I just couldn't get out of bed and I didn't tell them didn't phone
them nothing also they were in the process of making people redundant so I just assumed that I was on that list you know first in last in first out kind of thing because I'd only been there for a little while so I thought I'm just gonna that's why they've moved me because they're gonna make me redundant and just kick me out and I wouldn't have got any redundancy money because I'd only been there since what April so I just between the two of things between that and the shifts not being
able to get out of bed so I just didn't go in anymore which then meant that I didn't have any rent which then meant my landlord hassling me for the rent and so I had to get out of there sharpish and I found somewhere else to live that was cheaper and I literally I had two cleaning jobs building up to Christmas this December moved in there and I think possibly the end of November maybe begin December maybe November I was only there for about five or six weeks so I was
there until the begin of January 2000 no 1991 and so I'm in there two part-time jobs so I think I'm working four hours a day as a cleaner it's two different one one on the office in the docks and another one in a supermarket in town so I'm literally living off a very small amount of money because the rent was low but which is lucky for me it's for about 30 pound a week and I probably had about 15 pound a week for food but I managed it you know it
was it was doable I did it and it was fine and and it's weird because in some ways I quite like living there in a weird way the room was way too hot because the radiator was always on so I'd have to and I was on the ground floor so I'd open the window up to let the air out so I had a bit of breeze coming in but the room was always warm and my landlady well my sorry the lady and the man in the room next to me there
was a couple I got on really well with them and they would play their music very loud and they were really into um what's his name do do do do do do do Pavarotti so they kept playing because at that time Pavarotti was it became a superstar all over again people that never heard of Pavarotti because of the world cup now knew about Pavarotti like he was yeah superstar I mean all he had been always was but this was like on a new level I think European wise anyway or in
this country and I used to moan at them and say can you turn your music down and they would then they'd turn it up again but it was never through malice they were always nice to me and it was weird because I went to his wedding because he married a different woman and now he's living with that woman's friend so I went to his wedding the year before and they were both they both liked to drink let's put it that way but at the same time it didn't really I don't
think they even are they argued a little bit but they loved it they really seem to love each other and they were also really friendly to me whether they were sober or drunk I mean I say whether they were sober I'm not sure if I ever met them when they were sober but they were just nice nice people and it seemed like you know they met the person they wanted to be with which was lovely but turn the music down it's very loud at times but I used to be super
sensitive with my old hearing any doors slamming clicking anything like that used to just oh wherever I lived I used to get a bit a little bit sensitive I'm not so much now I mean not anywhere like I used to be no you may not believe me but it's true I'm not I'm much more much more easygoing than I used to be in the old days I found out ironically when I moved into this house the last house I lived in before I moved to London so this is the one
the really hot room and with my neighbors I was living opposite one of my supervisors or one of my my supervisors from my last job in the factory and I realized I loved her and I was back living in the same road as I'd grown up in but my childhood home from the age of nine to fifteen I was just a little bit further up from where I used to live and I realized afterwards that she was my friend's sister so I dated a girl but it was like friend date
girlfriend then friend you know it's not really I was at school but her sister was a fair bit older than her and me as well so but not at that age a lot older but by the time I was 19 or I was 20 at this point she was probably about 24 25 and not a lot in it really anymore and she had she was there with I went into her house because she had a kid so I went to her flat upstairs I realized afterwards that she's still in the
same house she was before but she's clearly taken over it's hers now she lives there and I don't know who lives downstairs maybe her parents live downstairs I don't know so I was up there and the other supervisor so basically there was two supervisors on night shift them two two ladies and they're saying what happened to you I said well well I thought I figured I was going to get made redundant so I just didn't come in anymore and they both said no you weren't I mean one of them had
been there for a long time she was like much more senior than the the one that I was talking about earlier and she said no you weren't going to get redundant we were going to get rid of the old wood the people that don't they just turn up and they don't do anything people have been there for 20 30 years some of those people will look into kind of you know say goodbye to them gonna use you saying up everyone gets on with you you're you're well liked and he's cheeky
but you know we all like you there so we were surprised when you left I was like I didn't ask if I could go back because I thought you know what I've been there three times I've worked three times and left three times without even telling them I was lucky to get you know I mean to the only reason I got back the two times after I left was because I was friends whoa no the second time I got back so basically I started working there in September 1988 1988 yeah
1988 that's it 1988 so I worked there was two factories I worked in the old factory but there was a bloke that did the same thing in the new factory but they did a like a similar thing to what we were doing and he was from Liverpool and he used to come over with another bloke that worked there and we'd all have a chat and I got on really well with him and I think I did overtime a couple of times and I worked over there with him so I left
there I don't even remember oh yeah I left there to go and get a job in a pub so I started there in September I left in probably beginning of December which although there's three months that's a heck of a lot a long time for me at the time three months was a long time so I left when I just needed to do something different I was bored just putting boxes meters into boxes electric meters so it's very yeah it's a bit just boring and I didn't I suppose I didn't
have a lifestyle outside of work I didn't have my own flat I was just living in a little room and I had no aspirations at all in life just no no motivation nothing that I was looking forward to so I was just working I'd do loads of overtime there'd even be a point which is ironic because a year earlier I was absolutely skint but there'd be periods that I would have money because I was doing so much overtime I was getting a nice packet of money at the end of the
month and I didn't know what to do with it I didn't think to myself oh okay I'll put this as a deposit on a flat and rent a flat somewhere and start building a life never even entered my mind to do anything like that I was just looking around I went to antique shops thinking or get an old gun or not just something I didn't know what I wanted something but I didn't know what to spend the money on and because I was living in these tiny little rooms there was
I couldn't really collect anything there was no room to put anything there was a bed a wardrobe maybe a chair and a some somewhere to put a television quite often that would be on the set of drawers and that'd be it there'd be no room for books no room for to be collecting albums or anything really I mean in reality I could have got driving lessons got myself a car motorbike I could have done all that stuff but didn't even consider it didn't even think about it it was one day
at a time I mean what I could have done thinking about it if if I wanted to actually I didn't want to live a a life where I just kept leaving my jobs it just happened to be how things were but I could have I could have put money aside for those times so I could just you know work for three months and then have the rest of the year off or have six months off and then get another job which was usually quite easy back then so I left the
job the first time in the factory the meter factory I got a job in a chip shop that that really didn't work out very well and then I left there in a pub no did I say chip shop man I blimey I got a job in a pub I chose to work in a pub I'd never done it before I thought it would be fun I'd meet meet people have a social life maybe get married you know none of those things happened I did meet a future landlord and landlady so
I guess something good came out of it from that aspect but you know I did that job started it probably beginning of December end of November and I finished it on New Year's Eve I went I left I didn't never went back because they were trying to retrain me they said you have come in tomorrow New Year's Day for retraining because the tools were short again so like pointing the finger at me and I said no I've got I've got dinner because I didn't have Christmas dinner because I was working
all through Christmas I said I've got my dinner with my nanny and granddad and my family so I missed Christmas dinner because I was here so I'm definitely won't be here tomorrow and he said if you don't come in tomorrow then you haven't got a job I said all right then see ya and then it turns out he's telling all the regular customers that I was sacked for taking money out of the till it's like even even I know that it's ridiculous to take money out of a till because it's
good the till is going to be short you have to be cleverer than that I'm not sure how because I don't really have that mindset but you you don't you know if you put in you've got because these were the days when it wasn't sophisticated you just type in the amount you'd have to work out the full amount of all the drinks then type it in so basically if you want to still £10 then instead of putting in £20 oh how am I going to say yeah I don't know but
you know you have to put in half you'd have to reduce the amount you type in if you're going to take that money I think I'll tell you something in the comedy club my friend who owned a comedy club he he knew all the tricks all the tricks because he used to do them and one night at the end of the of the night two in the morning it'd been a good night successful you know loads of people and he called everyone to the bar to the front of the bar
and he he basically kicked the bin over the bin that was behind the bar and he pulled it on the floor and started kicking stuff out of the way and there was loads of pound coins in there loads and loads of pound coins so the bar person on that particular night was skimming I don't know how they were doing it because they weren't they weren't putting it into the till so it wasn't it wasn't coming out like you could see the till wasn't short it was doing it some other way
with the cash but my friend was watching was watching everyone and he watched him do it and just let him continue doing it and I don't know if he called the police or not or just dealt it in his own way probably and he said to me like that's why he said the reason he had me working on the door like you know sort of I'd help out and take money on the door and do some little bits and bobs he did that because he trusted me and he said he
didn't trust many people and it's honestly it's weird a thing about it is it'd come in probably because he'd come and go because he was he didn't have to actually work in there but he was he was a boss but he'd be upstairs or he might go home and he'd come back and he'd go into the till behind the bar or he'd take all the money out from the to take you know so it hand me like two or three grand and he'd just say put that in your pocket until
we cash up just put it in your pocket that's how much he trusted me well he only did it once because I took off and didn't since I've seen him again that was a lovely two and a half grand that was no but he trusted like there it's like remember first time he did it I thought is this a bonus a pay rise am I what is it you want from me but he used to come because he wanted I think he just didn't want it all stuck in one place
so yeah so put it in your pocket and then he'd only allow me to deal with the door money to cash it up so no one else is allowed to touch the door money it's like yeah so it's quite nice being trusted I quite liked it I don't think I've ever been trusted before not like that actually that's not totally true my boss in the chip shop used to trust me to take the money to the bank and put it in so he'd have like a bag with five grand in
there or something and I was living on seven pound a week I can't move on can I move on it's like four years ago move on baby I can't I'm trying to I did get pies I used to sneak down on a Sunday because I'd have no food and when we're open I'd eat because I'd be working or even if I wasn't working I could come in and get food you know whoever was working would give me whatever I wanted that's just the perk of working in a place isn't it
you just if you work in the Wimpy or if you work in McDonald's maybe not McDonald's but I'm thinking they're pretty quite strict yeah there's a lot of people watching you there I imagine but if you work in a I'm sure if you work in a kebab shop you go in on your day off they're just going to give you a kebab probably so I always kind of had food kind of generally during the week Sundays I'd have my breakfast cereal and I would just have nothing sometimes I'd have to
come down because I had the keys to the building so I'd come down and go in and I think one of my favorite things to do was I didn't turn the fryers on or anything like that it'd always be just like a microwave so I'd get stuff that was left over from the day before like Cornish pasties I'd perhaps get a couple of them heat them up and then if there's any bread rolls left get some bread rolls tomato ketchup maybe a couple of cans of coke and that would be
me and it's yeah I mean it's probably a little bit sneaky but I needed to eat and the thing is I was really good I know I do probably maybe I mentioned I moan a bit too much about the place and I perhaps don't give it it doesn't sound like it's a good memory or whatever but the thing I did like about it first of all my boss was a nice bloke I'm kind of starting to see outside of my own resentment these days actually he was a good person and
it kind of took me under his wing in a sense if you think about it I was left on my own and he gave me somewhere to live upstairs I know he was getting 40 quid a week but then he was probably having to pay out that much anyway it's probably you know because he's renting the shop and renting the flat upstairs so I was probably just covering the cost of the flat because he could have rented it out for a lot more than 40 pound a week so I don't
know and he taught me how to prepare fish and he taught me how to you know I I would say in my opinion but we were the best chip shop in town we did the best chips and I'd say did the best fish and I was the best fish fryer other than maybe him maybe Paul there was a bloke called Paul why do I remember his name but I would say I was the best apart from my boss he was better than me because he'd been doing a lot longer than
me but I did become good at it because you know you do anything all day long you become good at it even if it's not useful even if it's unhelpful you know we become good at what we do don't we I'm not saying I'm good at this but in a sense of yabbering on yeah I'm good at just talking doesn't mean that what I'm saying is of any use but it's you know I mean so sitting here blah blah blah yeah it's something that's quite easy and I'm sure there's a
lot of people around the world that probably think that this is easy to do and that they'd find it easy but I reckon a lot of people would be surprised at how difficult it is for them to sit in front of a microphone no one else about and I've got little Vinnie but he's not that actively involved in the podcasting process to be honest but to have no stimulation I suppose I've got the laptop here so I can look at stuff online but I mean quite often I don't even have
the laptop on I'll have it down and I'll just be talking and I've not really looked at it much at all during this recording so hmm it's I'd be interested to find out but I imagine a lot of people would be surprised that it's not as easy as perhaps it sounds or it seems I might be wrong but I've heard a few people in the past say that like oh they'll be easier than they tried it and like they just stopped anyway I'm gonna go so I'm gonna go get ready
take Vinnie out for a bit then I'm gonna have my din-dins watch a bit of telly the dog's barking to say goodbye bye everybody bye bye hope you like the fact that I've been fairly quiet during the recording bye and I'll be back again tomorrow so take care remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy be gentle with yourself you deserve to feel safe lots of love Vinnie's flapping his ears to say goodbye see ya bye
Paragraph spacing and recurring name or title errors have been tidied. Because this began as a voice transcription, an occasional word or piece of punctuation may still be incorrect.