(music) (5 hours) NOT Trivia Tuesday LMBYTS #1541 Jason Newland 20th January 2026

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. Please only listen when you can. Safely close your eyes.

It is 2.45 in the afternoon and I made Monday's Boring Objects last night. Edited it this morning. Been trying to upload both the podcast and the video and they're still not done.

It's taken hours to upload small files onto the podcast. Because my internet is just not very good. I don't know what's going on.

It's very, very silly. Anyway. Yeah, just be moaning really.

So today I have actually last night. I got a good night's sleep. Because the night before Vinnie was hassling me like continuously.

Didn't bother me once last night. In fact, he stayed in bed. Yeah, till 10 o'clock.

Yeah, he was still in bed at 10 o'clock this morning. Which is normal. I think we went to bed about 11 ish.

So he got his 11 hours, which is what he's normally has. The night before was just a bit chaotic. I don't know what's going on.

But I'm glad that's now done. So this morning, we went out and we were out for about an hour and a quarter. So long walk, and he met a few dogs.

He met three and four. So three dogs he'd never met before another dog he'd never met before. Three were together and another one was separate and he did his normal thing barking.

So I spoke to the people to people with the dogs and just like said, it'll be okay in a minute. Just if we just chat for a couple of minutes, just like he'll get used to the dogs and they'll be fine. And he did not not to the point where he wanted to marry them.

But he, the thing is, if I pull him away, the minute he starts barking at a dog, then every time he sees that dog is going to bark, and I'm going to pull him away. And that's just annoying. I think for everyone.

But if you can get that little bit of barking out of his system. And then it's that little bit of sniffing and a bit a little bit of kind of sniffing a bit growling, don't get too close. But just have a sniff anyway, please, please sniff it.

It's like, weird, you know, dogs. And he was cool with three dogs, the fourth dog, again, he started to calm down. It seems to be the best way to deal with him.

But there's one dog that he literally, I mean, I was walking through the park, this is yesterday afternoon. And there was this bloke walking towards us and he was barking. I'm thinking why is he barking at that man? I genuinely thought he was barking at the man because I couldn't see anything else from where we were standing.

Vinnie, and we went up a little bit further, and there was a dog around the corner. So if any, not only he couldn't see the dog, but he clearly could smell the dog or hear the dog. And it was barking already.

And a bloke walking up said I thought he's barking at me as well. And I said, so did I I thought what's going on. But the other side of the field or the park, the dog that he won't stop barking at is there.

He won't he won't stop barking. He just every time try and get him close. He just barks.

There's something he doesn't like. Yeah, something he doesn't like about that dog. And I don't understand it because is a lovely dog, like a really gentle dog.

So I don't know why Vinnie's being such a knobby. So, oh, guess what it is today. It is it is I do believe.

I'm pretty certain. If I am, I think I'm correct. Trivia Tuesday.

Yeah. Trivia, Trivia, Trivia Tuesday. So what I thought I'd do, I'll try and define something that was a bit weird.

So I thought I'd go with world records that are pointless. I mean, some would argue that all world records are pointless, kind of, but, you know, I'm sure a lot of people would also disagree with that. And I mean, let's face it, if people can disagree that the world is round, then people would can disagree about pretty much anything.

Did I tell you the other day? I was looking on TikTok. And I was just skimming through, I was sitting down on my chair, just having a little look, checking my stats and and I dropped my phone, went to court to catch it. Next thing I know, I'm in someone's box.

And I hear, Hello, Jason, would you like to introduce yourself? So I'm trying to get out of it. I'm trying to get and it wouldn't do anything. It froze.

So you hear me is like, Hello. How old are you? I said, Oh, 55. I thought you were.

I said, What? Yeah, because you're breathing. I didn't want to say I was breathing heavily because I was frustrated with trying to get this phone, kind of. And I thought that's a bit rude, isn't it? Because you're breathing.

What do young people not breathe? Is that is that just a thing for older people? How did I manage to get through my life if I never breathed before? We just can't hear young people breathing. Is that breathe out young people don't breathe. You can hear it is not audibly detectable.

I don't know. I'm not Yeah, if I ran for the bus, you would hear it. To be fair, you wouldn't hear my voice.

You'd hear the sirens of the ambulance probably. But for how rude of them. And they started asking me the most random pointless questions.

What did you have for dinner? Who cares what I had for dinner? What possible opening question would that be in any scenario of interest to anyone ever? It's the most pointless question to ask. I mean, the only there's only one more pointless question. What did you have for dinner? And that is what you're going to have for dinner.

That's like asking how many times you're going to wipe after you've done a poo. That's that's the same level of pointlessness questions. I just don't get it.

Another one is what did you do the weekend? Did you have a nice weekend? used to hear that like when I was in work. Do you have a nice weekend? I had to learn to just start saying Yeah, thanks. And then I had to learn to say you pretend to kind of be interested.

Like, did you have a nice weekend? Did you? And you might think, well, that's just rude. If you if you're not interested in people's weekends, you don't want didn't you like the people you worked with? Yeah, I did. Actually, I did like the work people I worked with.

I wasn't interested in what they did at the weekend. I got family members and I don't care what they did at the weekend. I don't really care what they did for the last year.

Unless it's interesting. Then tell me. You know, if it's an interesting story, if it's you know, then yeah, I'm interested.

But just generally, off the bat, I'm not thinking about other people's weekends. You know, getting to work on a Monday morning. I'll be honest, I'm probably just focused on doing the work I'm there for focused on just, you know, keeping calm.

Don't breathe too heavy. You know, just how was your weekend? The thing is, I didn't say how was your week, it's like, did you have a good weekend? It's almost like not giving me an opportunity to tell them what my weekend was really like. That's another thing.

If you presume by asking a question like that, did you have a good weekend? Not really, no. I fell in a well. I mean, I don't know what it's like you can't it's weird human conversations.

You know, I see people after Christmas, do you have a good Christmas? No. No, I haven't had a good Christmas since 2004. And then the one before that was 1985.

Or 84, probably 1984. So yeah. So that she every 20 years I have a good Christmas.

No, I didn't have a good Christmas. But I never do. It's not not.

It's just, just the way it is. It's not like moaning. It's like, well, I just say, yeah, thanks.

And I remember I've got to ask you. But what if they tell me about it? That's the thing. That's the question.

Because I say, sometimes I say, yeah, yeah. And I feel that pressure to do the opposite to what I would normally do. And that is asked them how their Christmas was.

It's like, I don't know. But then if you'd I guess if you don't know, if you don't want to know a lot about it, you can just do a yes or no question. Did you have a good Christmas? If you ask how was your Christmas? That opens up for a whole dialogue, doesn't it? Did you have a good Christmas? And if you're in a public space like workplace?

If you say anything, but yes, people are gonna be judgy.

Very judgy, judgy, judgy, judgy, judgy. Oh, it's miserable Jason. He did me.

He said, no, we all had a good Christmas. He said no. His house burned down.

Miserable. So like, I suppose if you say, did you have a good Christmas? A yes or no? Then the person kind of has to say yes, unless they're just genuine and they say, well, if it was no, then no. But it's kind of an awkward thing to say, isn't it? I mean, my Christmas wasn't good or bad.

It was just, just, it wasn't really any different to any other day really. I mean, there's parts of it were really good. But, you know, as far as like the actual day itself I'm talking about, you know, didn't do anything, didn't go anywhere.

Everything's closed at Christmas. So yeah, I just watched a bit of telly. I've not even caught up with EastEnders.

I've run, I've watched it and then I kind of about two weeks behind again. How did I get onto this? What am I talking about? I suppose I'm thinking about pointless things, pointless things that people ask. Yeah.

So what did you have for dinner? I said, well, I had chicken in a roll. The, you know, breast of chicken. I just wanted to say the word.

Well, I was online and I was around women. I thought it'd be funny if I could get away with it. It's a bit childish of me.

Chicken in a roll, bread roll. I said, oh, what else do you have? What do you mean what else did I have? Nothing. That was it.

What about the vegetables? It's like we've just met. I'm literally a complete stranger on the internet and you're delving into my dietary requirements and what like, what's it got? Why? I mean, that's like the worst first date ever. Can you imagine being on a first date and so on? The first thing they ask you is what did you have for dinner? That'd be like, that's the end of the day, isn't it?

I mean, that's, that is really a little bit.

I mean, I had a date once. It's true. Hard to believe.

This was 2004 and it was January. It was a blind date. I don't know, I must've been drunk or something.

No, I wouldn't have been drunk. Maybe it was, if it was the year before, it was like, yeah, possibly if it was the end of 2003. But I phoned up the local newspapers single section and I posted her like an advert.

It's free. And she replied to the advert and sent me a letter saying, oh, whatever. And I phoned her up because I thought, what am I getting this letter for? Phoned her up and in the end she said, it was a bit of an awkward conversation and I thought I've got to say something to her to make it interesting.

So I asked her, you know, what she had for dinner and that made her happy. And she seemed to be really interested in talking about food and stuff. No, I didn't.

And, you know, it's like, when did you last cut your toenails? It's the equivalent question. It's just like, I've got a neighbour that does that. What did you have for dinner? What are you talking about? Why? That's what I'm going to think about today, isn't it? Why? Just seems like a really strange question.

I might be the odd one out. I have been before. Hard to believe, but I have been.

Humans. I mean, is there anything more pointless to ask someone than that? What do you want for dinner? That's different if you're if you're cooking someone dinner. So if I'm cooking someone dinner, I'm going to not just going to assume that they're going to eat what I give them, because they may have specific dietary needs, as it were.

And also, that would be helpful, especially as a first date. And if I was cooking or we were going to go to a restaurant, then instead of me just booking a table at an Indian restaurant, if she has certain allergies and things like that, then, you know, I kind of need to inquire into that. And if she has got allergies, and that will depend whether or not we have a date, I guess.

So what was my point? I don't know. But anyway, I had this one that's not one that's one. Well, I had this blind date.

And she spent so when I went to her. And I thought, you know what I've learned from this in the past, I've spoken to people had blind dates, it's gone on way too long on the phone. ends up like being a relationship before even meeting them.

And it's never going to be satisfactory for either person. It's too awkward. Because I can get to know someone very, very well on the phone, really intimately, like, like personal wise, I mean, kind of just But then there's that whole meeting and it just feels different.

I think maybe I'm just better at communicating when the person is not there. I think that's might be what it is. My communication skills seem to dry up when the heat when I've got someone in front of me.

Sometimes not all the time, but that's how I would know if I met the right lady. If I was able to be me with her and not get tongue tied and not just run out of things to say. And just be if that didn't happen, then I'd kind of know that maybe that would be my my person.

Because any friends I've got, that's what I'm like with. I don't get tongue tied or run out of things to say. I've only got a very tiny, tiny percentage, very small amount of friends that I talk to.

And they seem to just accept me for who I am. But in the past, I've had friends that didn't accept me for who I am, when they found out who I am. Because that's the thing that used to really bug me when I was about my early 20s.

So people would accept me how I was. But I didn't want to be like that. I wanted to expand, I wanted to grow as a person, I wanted to become a better person, a kinder person, have a more open mind, and to get rid of my limiting beliefs as much as possible.

And if at all possible, get rid of most of my beliefs and opinions. Because that's the thing that really divides us, I think, as humans, is people that have got strong opinions and really strong beliefs that go against other people. And I've never, I kind of understand it in the sense of if you've been born into a belief system, you've pretty much got no choice but to believe that.

In order to, you've got a choice as an adult, you can move away, you can really, it takes a lot of work, serious work to move away from that, to be more open minded and less judgmental. And to not dislike a certain category of people that maybe you were born to dislike, you learnt to dislike, you weren't born, we're not born to dislike anything, are we? Generally, just things that make us jump.

That's the thing about babies.

That's the amazing thing about babies. Babies are not prejudiced against anyone, or anything. All that stuff's learned.

I mean, sometimes people learn it through bad experiences, and they generalize. I mean, that's, again, that's natural, it's a natural way to do things. You know, if you've only ever met a dwarf, okay, once, like a little person, I think the dwarf's the correct term now.

If you only, I'm just thinking of a TV show where the dwarf kept saying, you can't use the word midget anymore, kept telling people off, then he started calling himself a midget. And he was just like, just be a dwarf. When I was a kid, it was midget.

That's that was a normal term. But now everything's, you know, continuously being changed, isn't it? So dwarf, I think is the correct term. And I think they're lovely.

You know, and that's gonna sound weird. But I kind of wish I'd been born a dwarf. Because I'm so weird inside my head.

I'm not saying that dwarfs are weird. But it'd be nice to have something match. I don't know.

It's almost like I'm just too physically perfect. No, I don't know. I think it'd be cool.

I always like the idea. I don't like being short, this short, but I'd like to be shorter or taller. You know, being five foot or four foot tall, four foot five or whatever.

I'd be brilliant. Or being six foot eight. You know, not in between.

You know, I want tall or really short. That was what I would choose. I don't know.

I just I'm just a big fan of the old. What's his name from Star Wars that's in Rotherick or I forget his name. He's in Ricky Gervais's show, small something, whatever.

He's just a really funny actor. He does a TV show like some kind of quiz show, which I don't watch. I do not watch quiz shows at all.

Because there's a chance very small chance, but it's still a chance that I might learn something new and I don't want to learn anything. I want to learn anything new. That's not the purpose of television.

Purpose of television for me is to. It's just to waste time. That's that's what I want television for.

Not to learn things, learn things never. So. Can you imagine if we actually physically manifested like grew to match our minds? Didn't that happen? They did a version of that with.

Oh, yeah, with the mask. Do you remember the mask that the movie? So Jim Carrey had obviously green, but he was funny. I don't know.

He just like, you know, he he looked the way he looked. But then the bad man, the bad and the baddie, when he changed, he was almost when he put the mask on, almost changed into a monster. So I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know what would be. Would match.

I want to say like tongue tied. I think I mean. It still happens.

Sometimes I literally stand there and I'm talking to someone. And I'm just thinking to myself, I don't know what else to say. And it's then that I realized that I'm really not interested.

Perhaps in the person. Not in a bad way. I just I don't or I just.

The thing is, I can't pretend to be interested. That's one of those things. I can't pretend to be interested in something that someone says or in any subject, unless I really am.

I'll listen to someone telling me because someone comes and got problems and stuff. I listen. And I that does pique my interest because they still I put my little counselor cap on just covers my bald patch.

And. You know, there's still a part of me that. Is activated when in that situation, if someone's going through some stuff and I'm talking to them in a normal conversation.

I can just shoot the breeze and just chat and stuff. I could do small talk. But only with a little bit, just a short amount of it.

And then I'll say something that really grabs me and I like, oh, and I'm interested. Or there'll be something I'm doing that I'm interested in about and I'll talk about that. Which can, I think, annoy people and push people away.

Yeah, it's a bit self-centered. But I know that's what I'm like. I'm interested in myself.

And I'm interested in what I'm doing. But I am interested if someone comes up with something like saying, oh, I fell down a well the other day. As an example, I'd be like, wow, did you get out? No, I'm still there.

Did you? Really? What happened? That get my attention. And I wouldn't pretend to be excited. I mean, perhaps I shouldn't be that excited about that.

But I wouldn't pretend to be interested because I can't pretend to be interested. I don't have it in me. I did it for years, did it for years and years and years and years and years, decades and decades.

At least I try to. A lot of the time I didn't and people didn't like it because they tell me something and I'm like, okay, my time to talk. And I tell them what I want to talk about.

And it took me a long time to realize that that's what I was doing, to have enough self-awareness. Now, I had self-awareness at an early age, but a different type of self-awareness. I knew what I liked.

I knew what I didn't like. I saw my likes and dislikes were very much I was aware of. Why I like something I didn't care is of no interest to me.

Why I've always loved boxing really pretty much was since the age of 14, I think was when I really got into boxing. But I've loved boxing for that's a long time. That's like 40, 42 years.

But then I grew up watching boxing like Muhammad Ali and Barry McGregor and stuff when I was sort a lot younger. But I don't know why I like it. I just like it.

Maybe it's an inbuilt thing passed on by my granddad, because he was a boxer. So maybe I've kind of, there's something in me, maybe his father was a boxer. Maybe he comes from a generation of boxers.

I don't know. There's probably no way of knowing. So it's kind of just something I've always loved for a long time.

Martial arts, I loved martial arts. Did a few bits and bobs over the years. I wish I could now.

I wonder if there is a place, what kind of martial art could I do where I can't kick, I can only punch. Can't run around. Can't do anything physical.

And need to be able to do it sitting down. Nothing really is there. Sword fighting maybe.

I often like the idea. I mean, often, but in the past, I like the idea of, do you know sword fighting, like the Olympic sword fighting, where you go on guard, like Zorro, those kinds of swords. I like them.

I just thought I'd let you know. I like the idea of doing that. Two things over the years, I thought that I'd quite like to do.

Sword fighting and tap dancing. I saw something recently where it was a divorce thing. They were saying, this bloke on YouTube saying, my wife wanted to do this and I ceased to say no.

And then she left me in the end. And he was talking about going dancing and doing stuff that she wanted to do, but he kept saying, no, we'll do it. I don't really want to do that.

And then she met someone else. I had a girlfriend once, hard to believe, but it's true. And she wanted to go dancing.

And I thought, well, no. Then I thought to myself, what if she goes on her own, she meets someone. And I still thought, no.

So what if she meets someone and leaves me? Still, no, still don't want to go dancing. I thought if I kept like thinking of the worst case scenario that could happen for me not going, then I'd like, you know, I'd like to go dancing. Be turned on to the idea of going dancing, like almost excited.

What, what if when she's gone dancing and the, you know, a plane lands on the house. No, no, I still want to be at home. Still rather do that than go, go dancing.

Or what if when she's dancing, there's a new, you know, there's a world war happens and it only happens because she's gone dancing on her own. No, no, I still take the war. I realized I didn't really want to go dancing.

That's what I took from that. And so that was like 2006. And for about 10 years later, I was doing some voluntary work in a venue in local, in a town shortly after I moved in here.

So I don't know, maybe, I don't know what year it was. I wish I stuck it because it probably would have done me good to be there. Anyway, so I'm, I'm there.

And where am I? Yeah, so I'm there. And they said, Oh, could you come on Friday? That's it coming on a Friday. I'm there.

I'm thinking it's going to be something like disco or something. It wasn't. It was dancing, ballroom dancing.

And I thought, really? So I'm kind of, I'm in the bathroom. I hear my voice being called. I'm just about to detonate the, the bomb.

And the person says, Oh, come have a look at this. So I went outside and I looked at a big queue of people and they're all dressed really nice. I thought, okay, maybe let it let it go ahead.

And like proper. What's that TV program that I don't like? Strictly used to be called Strictly Come Dancing. Now it's just called Strictly.

Now is it Strictly Come Dancing used to be called Come Dancing. And then they change it to Strictly Come Dancing. And now everyone just calls it Strictly.

Because three words is very hard to probably say for people. It's a big title, isn't it? It's like, do you want to be a millionaire? Just call it millionaire. Millionaire.

And what's the other one? I'm a celebrity. Get me out of here. Celebrity.

Well, I'm a celebrity. It's like they can't just say the whole title. Why? Big Brother, we just call that Big.

I don't, I don't. Coronation Street. Corrie.

That's it. People don't like to say the whole word Coronation Street. So in the early 2000s, because I moved away from London, and I was around all these, um, I don't know, farmer, farmy people, like these people that live near farms and stuff.

I was in the countryside, kind of. And they're all saying, Oh, let's go down to Mackie D's. Mackie D's.

It sounds like something you'd find in Scotland, maybe. Mackie D. Dougal. And it's like, no, McDonald's.

Can't you just say McDonald's then? Mackie D's. Come on, fella. Mackie D's.

What's wrong with McDonald's? I don't. And what's weird is people are saying this about 20 years later, McDonald's starts using that term. So the adverts for McDonald's, they are 20 years behind what the public are saying.

I would never call it Mackie D's. I don't have it in me to do that. Because I don't, I don't feel that it needs a nickname.

McDonald's is quite a short, it's quite a short word. It's not. It's not really a complicated thing to remember.

Mackie D's. Oh, should we ever, should we ever Mackie? Should we ever, I don't know, just maybe I'm just being grumpy with my old age, maybe. I've always felt this.

I've always kind of like, why? It's like Marks and Spencers. They used to call it Marks and Sparks. Marks and Spencers, Marks and Sparks.

And then it turned into Marxies over time. Marks and Spencers is one of the big grocery, retail, whatever brands in the country. And it's, but when I was a kid, Marks and Sparks, it was never Marks and Sparks, I don't think.

So I think Marks and Spencers, maybe Sparks to rhyme with Marks. I don't know. And then Marxies.

And we had Woolworths. We used to have a thing called Woolworths here. That was too complicated to say for people.

Let's go to Woolies. Woolies, Woolies, Woolies, Woolworths. The same length of time to say the word.

But you don't, you save no time or energy doing it. Woolies, Woolworths. I suppose ease is quite easy, isn't it? There's an ease in saying ease.

Woolworths, Woolies, Woolies. I suppose you can kind of, once you get to the wool, you get to the l, you can kind of drop off the energy, kind of ease. Woolies.

But with Woolworths, you've got Woolworths. There's a certain, it's like two words, isn't it really? It's one word, but into two parts. Woolies.

It's always just like one, one part and just the rest kind of floats away. So she's asking me, what did you have for dinner? I said, well, chicken roll. A chicken in a roll.

Breast. And she said, well, you didn't have no vegetables. I said, no.

What do I want vegetables for? She said, well, vegetables are important, don't you know? I said, oh, I love it. I will have vegetables. I have them tomorrow.

And I started, I found myself starting to to defend myself for not having had enough veggie-tables. I don't know why. And then she said, have you got a lot of money? So there's like three or four people on this panel.

It wasn't like a dating thing or anything, because sometimes on TikTok, they have like date and there's like 12 women and one man comes on and it's about, I don't know why they do it. And then the woman says, no, I'm married. Why are you on there anyway then? So maybe it just makes them feel good for themselves because they're being picked by someone.

I don't know. So I, because some people feel good by rejecting, don't they? By rejecting another person gives them self-esteem. But that's why I think that I've helped lots of women with their self-esteem over the years.

Thousands. So, I, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Have you got any money? I thought this is ridiculous.

They've just met me. First of all, they're asking me what I've had for dinner. Now, first of all, they'll admit my age.

Then they point out that I'm breathing heavy. And then they say, what am I having? What did I have for dinner? And now they want to know my bank balance. That's a little bit personal, isn't it? In quite a short distance.

I mean, I've never had any woman in my life ask me if I've got any money, especially ones that meet them because they can tell I haven't. But I've never had a person ask me, have you got much money? Ever. I mean, I guess if you meet me, you can see that I'm not rich.

So it's just kind of assumed, I suppose. And maybe if you see me, just assume that I'm just eating chocolate all day. So you don't ask me about my diets either.

I don't know. And no one asked my age. I talked to women in their 70s, men in their 70s that are walking their dogs.

And I think they just classed me as the same age as them now. And I kind of do as well, even though they might have like 25 years on me or 20 odd years. It's just like, there's not a lot of difference now.

So I'm trying to get out of this group. Someone else comes in, they start talking about something. And I'm like, get me out of here, get me out of here.

So in the end, I had to literally turn my phone off. I wanted to sort of say I'm going to go now, bye. But I knew if I did that, I'd still be there.

And they kept talking, I didn't want to interrupt them. So I thought, okay, thinking about it, I probably should have just typed in bye. But I ended up turning my phone off and having to reboot my phone because it just got stuck on the screen, which was mildly annoying.

So I'm on this date, this is 2004 in January. It's a blind date. So I take a cab, I take a kinder egg with me to her.

And I give it to her. As soon as we meet up, she's been in a pub, I don't know how long before I got there. And that was my year of no drinking alcohol.

Like nothing. Admittedly, I haven't had alcohol for the whole of last year either, or I don't drink anymore. But there was a time when I used to drink.

So I stopped in 2004, New Year's Eve, 2003, and then didn't have a drink for the whole year. So I thought, well, I don't know what I'm going to do. I've got nothing to lose by turning up.

I mean, she might be nice. We might get on we might not, I don't know. So I went along, she'd had a few drinks.

She was perfectly nice enough, friendly. So I gave her a kinder egg. And I said, that's for you.

And you can open up play with a toy if you get bored talking to me. So she found that mildly humorous. And but then she started talking about, because I was a vegetarian.

And I didn't drink, she kept saying, Why are you not drinking? I didn't want to say it to because I've got maybe potential. I don't know, I wasn't. I don't say maybe a drink issue.

I didn't want to kind of go down that road. So it's well, I've kind of overdone it a little bit. I got become a little bit.

The correct term would have been self medicating, but I didn't know at the time. So she said, Why are you not drinking? I said, I'm just having a break. And she said, That makes sense.

Have a drink. I said, No, I can't. She said, Why not? I said, Because I'm a Buddhist.

She said, What? I said, Yeah, it's no intoxicants. Buddhism, you know, if you if you decide to take it seriously. And she said, What do you eat then? I said, I'm vegetarian, which I was.

She said, You're vegetarian, and you don't drink alcohol. Now I did drink alcohol before that, you know, in the previous year. So I wasn't a strict Buddhist by any means.

And she made fun of me the whole night. Asking question after question after question about Buddhism and how it affects my life and I think at the time I had my head shaved as well. And I started shaving my head in 2003, probably the summertime.

And maybe April, I don't know the exact date. I do know that when I used to shave my head, because I used to use a clip. Clippers was connected to the electricity.

And he used to do it really quick. And I used to do that during Smallville when it was on TV. It was on BBC Two.

Might have been Channel Four, but I think it was BBC Two. So I'd be sitting on the floor, which is something I've not done in a long while sitting on the floor, how would I get back up? And I was shaving my head. And then I'd shampoo my hair, even though I didn't really have shampoo, my scalp, sort of rinse it all off.

And I had this moisturizer, scalp moisturizer that was Oh, so lovely. Seriously smell absolutely beautiful. So to rub that into my head, and give my give my scalp a nice big old massage, or rubbing my head really kind of always lovely.

And smell smell lovely as well. So I do that prepared for Monday morning. So every Sunday, I would do that every Sunday afternoon.

Because at that time, I never worked on a Sunday. And yeah, I don't think I worked on a Sunday or for the whole maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I did when I was in the gift shop, but not when I was in insurance.

Yeah, it wasn't open on Sunday. I think. No, I'm pretty sure it wasn't.

No. So I yeah, she made fun of me the whole time about being a Buddhist. So that was awkward.

I mean, the end of the night was okay. So made up for it. But it's like, no.

But then she wanted to come back to my place. Don't worry, I'm not going to give you details. But she came back, I was living in a YMCA.

But it wasn't in the hostel bit. It was in an actual studio apartment in the building. So it was it was fairly nice.

It was a lot a lot of flats there. And it was at the time it was kind of Yeah, there was, I'll talk about that another time. There's a lot going on there.

But but I invited her up. So I said, Are you sure you want to come up to my place? I said, Yeah. Okay.

So I took her up. And I didn't realize what she was doing was just meeting people. And out of the ones she met choosing which one she wanted to kind of have a date.

So I was just one of quite a few probably that she'd met up with. And she just probably just had to whittle it down to it's like a dating game, I suppose. We'll do it down to someone and she maybe met someone that she clicked better with than with me.

I did see her twice. So by that I don't mean like turn my head and then look back at her. I mean, she physically saw the next day as well.

After EastEnders. She kept phoning me Where are you? Where are you? I said, I'm watching EastEnders. Can't you come around now? I said, No, EastEnders is on.

And I don't think that went down very well, actually. Anyway. My nan always just didn't always but she used to say, don't put television before humans before people.

I remember thinking, why not? It's like don't put things that you enjoy doing that you find more important before people. Like my dad used to phone up. It was my nan's fault.

I found out she was the one doing it. So I'd visit my nan. We had this thing where we would watch Deal or No Deal together.

It was our thing. Deal or No Deal. So I'd take some buns and cakes around a cup of tea.

We'd watch it. And it'd be exciting. And if you know what Deal or No Deal is, you know that the most important part is the end.

You know, if you don't watch the end, you might as well have not watched the program at all. And guaranteed the phone would ring. It'd be my dad.

Like five minutes or 10 minutes from the end. And my nan would be, Oh, is your dad joining us? I said, No, I can't. I'm busy.

I'll call him back when this is finished. My nan used to get annoyed with me. And then when it finished, I'd phone my dad up.

We'd come around and I'd, you know, you know, I said, Yeah, I was watching Deal or No Deal. What I didn't realize is when I went to the toilet in the breaks, not in every break, but I'd go to the toilet in the break. I heard one time she was actually phoning my dad up saying, Yeah, Jason's here.

Yeah, he's in the toilet at the moment. You're gonna call back. It's like, I'm watching.

Literally, I was having a Deal or No Deal break. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if it was a poo or not.

The fact that I could hear her saying that probably meant that I was, you know, it was a bit of a longer break than normal. But it's like, why would you do that? You can't put TV first. No, but you don't really, there's no point watching 50 minutes of Deal or No Break if you're going to miss the last three minutes of where they open the last three boxes.

Especially if it's a really good board. And there was back then, I think it was 250,000 they used to have on the board, maybe it was higher. So if, if you if the board's really good, so there might be £1, £1,000 and £250,000.

I don't want to miss that. Usually, that's the point when they go to a break, but I don't want to miss that. So to get a phone call.

It's like no. And I was finding back said no, I'll call you back in a minute. I'm watching Big Deal or No Deal.

It's like, what are you doing? I was younger back then. And I'd like to say that I wouldn't do that anymore. But I probably still would.

But it's different now you can rewatch stuff you couldn't didn't have playback couldn't, you couldn't pause live TV like you can now depending on you know, how you're watching it. You couldn't watch playback, you couldn't all that stuff. It wasn't around back then.

So if you watch something, it was a one off opportunity to watch it. And then it was gone. The only things that were played back would be maybe an omnibus edition of EastEnders on a Sunday where they'd show all the episodes.

Or there's occasional programs would be repeated later in the evening. But probably not Deal or No Deal. I tell you one program that was repeated a lot was Neighbors and Home and Away.

They show that early afternoon about one o'clock. And then show it again at like one. And what yeah, and they show it again about five to 530 and 530 to six.

So it always used to be Neighbors from one to 130. Then Home and Away. Afterwards, and the same five Neighbors first and Home and Away.

And then what's the other one? It was at play school. Was it Rainbow? I think it might have been play school used to be on twice a day as well. Lunchtime, and then early evening.

And they had a thing where they said, we're going to look through one of the windows now boys and girls. Is it going to be the square window? Is it going to be the round window? Or is it going to be the triangle window? So I used to try and watch it during the day or find out someone and watch it during the day. Then I bring my friend around or to watch it together and I'd like predict it.

It's going to be the triangle window. How did you know? How did you know? Your psyche? How did you know? Yeah. Now, some friends would say, how do you know? We're surprised and impressed.

Some friends would say, we're 15, mate. What are you doing watching play school? It's for little kids. You're literally sneaking out of school, going home, letting yourself in, watching play school.

Just so you can find out which window they're going to look through. Come back to school, sneak in, and then try and find someone just wanting to come home with you. Just so you can brag about guessing what window it's in.

Going to be? And I said, yeah. It's like, I do think that a lot of people at school for I was a bit strange. Because I went around so many different people's houses, like friends, people I was at school with.

And so many of them, I didn't go around again. And maybe their parents didn't want me back. I didn't like I don't know what I did.

I mean, I only had literally, this is totally true. I mean, as a like a high school at high school, I only had two friends, where I was allowed to go inside their house. One was Ivan, one was Neil.

And Ivan's mom, amazing. I mean, if he wasn't there, she just let me stay and wait and she chatted to me. So absolutely brilliant.

She lived just around the corner. And he'd come into my house as well. He just come up and he'd knock on the back door if I need to go all out to just come and see my room or into the playroom, wherever I was.

And Neil, the same. Both his parents seemed to like me, or they accepted me. And he used to come in my house and my same with my parents.

But Dean, who was ultimately my best friend all the way through junior school, high school. We were kind of the closest. I was never allowed in his house.

I went in once, but his dad didn't like me. And I don't know why. I mean, he might say yes, Dean might say I was because you were such a whatever.

And I think, well, if I was that, why were you friends with me? If I was so bad? Such a bad boy. Why? Strange, I find. But I remember one friend's house, and he he lived, I mean, everyone lived kind of within the same area, because it was a small town.

So no one was that far away, really. And I went around one person's house that I went to school with, and we were jumping off, I think it's these bags of coal or some of these bags, and we were jumping off on off of them, and landing on top of each other. And I think I got a little bit carried away.

And I was kicked out. I wasn't allowed to go back. I was like, all I did was just play fight, we were just messing around.

But apparently, I kind of just got a little bit over, I said, I'm not over excited in a weird way, just like, just jumped up and kept jumping back and just couldn't kind of control myself. Not in a bad way, of course. I'm just, you know, I was probably like 11 or 12 at the time.

I went around another friend's house that I was at school with. And he lived near the golf course, a long way away, and went up on my bike. We went for a bike ride, and we're just hanging out for a few hours.

And I lost track of time. And then I came back. I think I was late getting back and everyone was upset with me and stuff.

No, I think no, I think his mum said you want something to for dinner. And I said, I'm gonna have to call my parents. So I did.

And they said, Where are you? You've been gone two days. They didn't say that. And I was like, you got to come home.

You've been gone for ages. So, but then it was a long way to go. It's going to take me an hour to get home anyway.

So yeah, but I never got invited back there. There's another one. I forget his name, but I never got invited back to his.

There was a kid around the corner. I think he was a year younger than me. And we used to walk to school together.

He had a violin. I used to play the violin, but didn't anymore. But he had a violin and we used to walk to school together.

It got on really well. And it got to the point where I would, I'd knock on his door and wait for him. Maybe, you know, wait inside or whatever.

And then one day he said, I'm not allowed to walk to school with you anymore, which is very awkward because we literally were walking at the same time. So it was like very strange. I don't know, maybe I don't think his parents told him he wasn't allowed to walk with me.

I don't know why that was. Trying to think of any other weird things happened. There was another friend I used to visit.

He lived right at the top of this house. So friends with him for quite a few years, but I didn't go visit him very often. There's another friend I used to visit and he lived on the seafront.

I don't think his dad liked me. But I stayed friends with him at school. I had a lot of friends I was friends with at school, but I didn't see them outside of school.

In fact, most of the friends I had at school were people I didn't see outside of school. I only saw three people outside of school, really, and that was Ivan, Dean, and Neil. Everyone else was just people that I saw in school.

Other than when I was in the Sea Cadets, I used to see other kids outside of school there. And when I did karate, I was seeing other kids there. But there wasn't many kids from my school there.

Mainly it was other kids from the other school, which was quite good because I got to meet other kids from the other school, the other high school where my brothers used to go. So that was quite nice because I got to, it's nice to meet other people, you know. And it was, yeah, it was weird.

The whole dynamics was strange in that town. It seems like everyone seemed to know me. Maybe it's because of my brothers.

Maybe it's because of who I was friends with. I don't know, but they seemed to know who I was, or at least who I, you know, what family I came from. I don't know why that is because I was pretty much a goody two-shoes, really, in a way.

I mean, I wasn't breaking the law or doing anything like that. I mean, generally, no, I wasn't. I wasn't.

I was smiling. I wasn't actually doing anything like that. But I still remember there was a kid called Jason, and this was in junior school, right? So I'd have been about 10.

And I said to him, do you like me? Do you like me? And he said, do you like me? His answer was, do I love you? Did you ask me if I loved you? And I said, no. But we're on a subject, do you? I said, no, I didn't ask. I said, do you like me? And I realized in that moment that I wasn't wearing any trousers.

I realized in that moment that it's a question, it's an unacceptable question to ask somebody, do you like me? Yeah, it's the most kind of honest question that you could ask somebody. Like, and it's setting yourself up for a potential one answer that you don't want to hear, you know? Do you like me? And he ran off laughing, thinking, I didn't ask him if he loved me.

No, I didn't.

You're not going to accidentally say love instead of like, are you? It's not, no, definitely like. Oops, just banging the desk now. So it's like, oh, that seemed weird.

It's a weird thing to kind of just come out with. I realized that I haven't done the world's records as yet. So I'm going to have to do it in a minute.

This might have to be not Trivia Tuesday. Wow. Hmm.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But I definitely didn't say, do you like, do you love me? I mean, I wouldn't say that.

So I didn't know how people felt about me. I didn't know how people viewed me. I still don't.

But that's when I started to notice. I didn't notice my appearance until I was probably, or how I looked rather, my how I looked, maybe, which is how I looked. I didn't really take much.

I didn't care how I looked until I was probably 14. That's maybe it's the acne. Maybe that's the thing.

But I didn't realize how I sounded until I was about 1415. Although someone said to me the other day that I've got a Suffolk accent, which I don't believe I have. But then I would possibly have a little bit of a Suffolk accent.

I lived in Suffolk for quite a long time. Plus Essex plus London plus Newcastle plus. Wow, Balcony Regis plus Ireland.

So yeah, I've moved around a bit. I've run out of things to say now. So this is not going to be a Tuesday trivia Tuesday thing.

This is going to be a standalone. Let Me Bore You To Sleep. I don't know.

Whatever really. And maybe I do a trivia Tuesday later. So I've got all the things world records that are pointless.

The first one is most T-shirts worn at once. I could not do something like that. The restriction or the constriction.

Imagine that like having 100 T-shirts like literally you'll be able to move with you. Oh man. So I'm going to go.

Thank you for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy and be gentle with yourself. You deserve to feel safe.

And remember, this is important. We all sometimes need to ask for help. So if you do need to ask for help, please do it.

Okay, and remember that you're going to be okay. Lots of love. Bye.