(music) #1545 Let me bore you to sleep Jason Newland 26th January 2026

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

It is Sunday the 25th of January I think. So what I thought I would do is I thought I'd go live on TikTok whilst I record this video. Okay so it's just uh I don't normally do this but I thought I'd make a change see what weirdness happens.

Hopefully nothing too weird. So I hope you're enjoying the improved background. I mean from this angle I think you can't see any of the wall now.

It's just the padding, the soundproofing. Some of them are falling off. So I've got some nails I'm going to bang them in tomorrow but I didn't want to disturb the neighbours on a Sunday so I'll do that tomorrow.

I had to do that with some of the others. It's only a small percentage of them but I think it's more to do with the felt that's already on the wall. It kind of dislodges it so it can't really get a proper grip.

So let's see if I've got this right. Yesterday all my trouble seems so far away. Now yesterday I did a video, did a podcast and it was two hours long, just over two hours long and wow.

It took all night to upload to YouTube because what I do is I upload it to YouTube then I download it back to my laptop. Then I do the editing, take the audio out and all that stuff, change the video, edit it, then upload it as 4k back to YouTube. So it's now a 32 gigabyte file and it's been going for about two hours now and it's seven percent uploaded.

So it's going to be all night, all night uploading. Hopefully it'll be a better quality video picture-wise than the one before. If it's not then I probably won't do that again because it's a very very long drawn-out process.

So I mean I am because I'm using the back of the iPad to film this and on for the YouTube video. The quality of the picture should be better. I'm using my phone to stream live on TikTok.

And my microphone is connected to my iPad and that's what I'll have to use for my podcast because my other microphone that I used to have behind me, well there's nothing behind me now, there's no desk behind me now, that's in front of me. It broke, the whole recording studio broke. So I've got 22 love hearts, thank you.

Who liked me? Who did like me? Stanley? Thank you Stanley, 1402, very kind of you. Sally says broken. Yeah, basically I turned it on.

It's been playing up for a few days so I use it every day, well I did use it every day, and it's just busted. I don't know, it's basically just not working. It's kind of coming on but it's not working.

I've tried plugging it in, turn it off, turn it on, turn it off, turn it on, all that stuff. But you know, if I took it to a specialist to try and get it fixed, it costs more than buying a new one, really. So I'm hoping, so Sally says, oh god man that's awful, are you planning on replacing it? I don't know Sally.

So I've got this microphone, you can't see it, I'll lift it up so you can see it on TikTok, there you go. So this is, although it looks, it looks a little bit like a Star Trek, you know where they say beam me up? It looks a little bit like that, or like an old mobile phone from like 20 years ago. It's actually a really good microphone.

It's not plugged into the, what's it, the phone, so you've just got the normal thing on TikTok. But it seems to be okay, because I've been using this microphone for my YouTube videos for quite a while now, for a week or two. There wasn't a huge difference really between the microphones, if I'm honest.

The microphone I was using was probably, it picked up less background sound. So yeah, I love Star Trek as well. Did you know, I'm getting excited now, there's a new Star Trek series on, I think it might be Paramount, but it's on Amazon, it might be on Amazon or Paramount, one of them, and it's called Starfleet Academy.

It's just new out and they literally release it an episode a week. I've not started watching it yet, because I want to wait until they've released the whole season before I watch it. What's your YouTube? I want to go, I want to subscribe.

My YouTube channel is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. And then it's just dash Jason Newland. So you can search me by Jason Newland, my name, or Let Me Bore You To Sleep.

And Sally says, I bought the Paramount subscription. Just thought it's amazing. Yeah, I annoyed me about the Paramount.

Is it Paramount? Yeah, Paramount. Boxing was on at the weekend. And it's a new bloke who does UFC.

He started his own boxing promotion company. So his first event was at the weekend. And I thought, brilliant, I'll be on the zone.

No, I was not on the zone. It was on Paramount Plus. So I thought, so what? I've got a Paramount Plus package, discounted for a pound a month for three months or whatever.

Because I've been with them before. So they kind of try and get me back. So yeah, okay.

Wasn't available to my country only available to America, Canada, and I think maybe Australia. Not Greenland. What if it was available in Greenland? So yeah, that annoyed me a little bit because it's literally what if it's streamed? What difference does it make? It's streamed over the internet.

So why would it make any difference what country it goes out to? I got it for free. You're Dana White's cousin. Cool.

So am I. We might have met. Yeah, so I've been doing the, this stuff, the padding on the back, bit of a padded cell maybe, but it's still, this is probably the best that was looked for years and years and years. And now I've got the momentum.

I'm going to continue. You know, it's going to take me probably a few months because of the expense. But I'm going to continue to do the whole wall of this room, the whole wall around in the same pattern.

And then when that's done, I'm going to do the hallway. And I'm just gonna sort of try and soundproof as much stuff as possible. Right, what is this saying there? I have mummy's phone.

Okay, hairline. Oi. Oh dear.

Right, okay, I realise I'm being, see it's started. Hairline is that you see how much hair you've got when you get to my age? I actually do have hair, but I shave it. But as you can see, you can see the scalp through my hair.

So it's like, if I let it, the longer it grows, the more bald I look. Yeah, plenty now. Wait till you're 55 like me.

Harry says I've got plenty now. Yeah, on your bum. I got more hair.

No, let's not go there. When my hair grows, it seems to part ways like the, is it Moses and the Red Sea? It kind of just, it's almost like lights are flashing, a big arrow saying, look at the bald patches, everyone. Look, look, look, look.

Yeah. My, it says here, number seven says you look good for your age. My doctor said that to me, my new doctor who I'd never met before.

He said that to me till he realised I was 55 before I was 70. It's not fair. So you look great for 90.

Thanks. I'm trying to think, I did watch some boxing because it was on the zone, different, different boxing. I do look 70.

Thanks. It's distracting. I forget about the, maybe I'll do like a regular Sunday, Sunday TikTok.

So that those watch it on YouTube or so as it listens to the podcast, know that I'm going to be mildly distracted by some of the wonderful things that people say about me. Yeah. By the way, if you can see those pictures, I'm really pleased with those pictures.

So thank you, Cara, again, for the picture you did for me. And thank you, stepmummy number two, but she won't be seeing this. So, and also that picture, you can't see on TikTok, but the, if I move the TikTok image around, look, these are pictures of Vinnie and one of Andre and Vinnie.

And that middle picture at the bottom is me as a baby. See, I wasn't always 90. Thank you.

Crazy. Do I challenge for a rose? Do a challenge for a rose? No. Chocolate bar, maybe.

There's pretty much nothing I wouldn't do for a chocolate bar right now. Oh, nice, nice dairy milk chocolate bar straight out of the fridge. Oh, I can feel my heart palpitating from all that sugar.

Oh, get a lower, a lower taper fade. I don't know what that means, Harry. So you're going about my hairline and now it looks like get a lower taper fade.

I don't know what a taper fade means. So it's not really much going on. My neighbors downstairs, uh, warned me that there's going to be a lot of baby crying because I had a visitor down, got a friend coming over to stay in a weekend with a baby.

Not heard the baby once. That might be because of my 70 year old ears. And I just can't hear anything anymore.

Maybe that's what it is. But Vinnie's seems to have been a bit disturbed by outside activity. He's barking during the day, but I don't know what he's hearing.

But luckily I could go into the bedroom and look out. So I've got, um, neck curtains now. So I'm like really excited.

I've got yellow neck curtains and I can look out and without worrying about people seeing me. It's not that I want to spend lots of time looking out into the garden. It's just when Vinnie's barking, I want to go and have a look and see what it is he's barking at.

But sometimes I've done it and because there was no neck curtains, people just looking up at me like, what do you want? And if it like gets weird, what if it turns into a conversation? What are you looking at? I'm just looking at you. Why? Don't look at me. But that exactly, this is what windows are for, to look through.

I'm looking through the window. They're see-through for a reason. So yeah, I don't want to get into that.

Someone says I look 18. I look 18. Yeah.

18 stone. Yeah. I'm not 18 stone, just under 16 stone.

I don't know what happened. I got down to 14 and a half. Ever since the diabetic, being pre-diabetic, I was told you got to lose weight.

You got to cut down on the sugar, no more Coke, no more chocolate. And so, well not, yeah, a big cut down really. So I stopped sugaring my tea.

I don't have any, I don't drink Coke anymore anyway, because I stopped that months and months and months ago. I used to drink about six cans of Coke a day, but that's gone, which would explain why I'm pre-diabetic, I suppose. And I got down to 14 and a half stone, probably by last summer.

So just say hello to anyone that's watching. I've only got two people watching on TikTok anyway. Hello, whoever you are.

Hello, whoever you are on YouTube as well. Because for years really, I've been focusing mainly just on my wonderful podcast listeners, of which there are at least five. I have at least an audience of five regularly.

But I kind of gave YouTube a miss for years and years and years and years. And although my new YouTube channel is eight years old, which is weird, that's as long as this Let Me Bore You To Sleep podcast is now. Eight years.

Eight years I've been talking about nothing for an hour or longer. Eight years in probably less than two months. Eight years.

I've been making videos and podcasts for 20 years now. I started in January 2006. 20 years.

I was only 75 at the time. Yeah. For years and years, I just uploaded lots of videos from the past.

And I just, I went in and out of like, do I want to do videos and one of the things that gave me some motivation was Boston Chickie, my friend. Check her out, Boston Chickie on YouTube. She's an old friend of mine that I've known for, blimey, 16 years.

I don't know, Boston, is it 16 years? It's a long time. And what's this? Okay. It was, does someone want to send me a universe? Apparently, that's quite a popular thing to do.

Sending old men universes. Cheers. Thanks.

I'll tell you about this actually, because it was a thing. I think Boston will be able to describe it, explain it better than me. But she introduced me to it.

So I used to do, I did hypnosis videos. And this is back in 2000, probably 10, I think, when I first met her, about 2010. And online, this is, and so I did videos, hypnosis videos.

And Boston started following me doing that. And we got chatting. And she said to me, because she said, Why don't you do vlogs? And I said, What's a vlog? Or video blog, I didn't really know much about it.

And she said, Well, it's just, it's like a video diary, kind of just talking, it's a bit, and I said, Well, I don't know, I've not really thought about doing that. And she said, Well, you do that anyway, with your updates. So I used to make occasional update videos, probably, sometimes daily, sometimes, you know, few times a month, sometimes really rarely, but it's just right from the start, I just say, Well, here's what I'm doing now, I'm now going to do a hypnosis course to stop smoking, I'm going to be doing, I'm moving house now, this is what I'm doing, blah, blah.

So I used to do these update videos. And Boston said, Boston chickie, she said, Well, it's just the same as that. And then she said, I said, I could do I suppose.

So I started doing a vlog called Jason chats. And I did lots, lots and lots and lots of them. And I did them for years and years, but I didn't, I didn't do it.

See, there was this 365 day challenge, which I did not complete, I could not complete it just I didn't have, I didn't have the resources to make a vlog every day. But I kind of got into the challenge, which meant I kind of became part of this big group of vloggers who are on YouTube making daily vlogs. So we're all supporting each other subscribing with each other, watching each other's videos, commenting, and you know, it was a nice community.

Because when I started doing videos on YouTube, there was hardly anybody on YouTube doing what I was doing, doing hypnosis videos. There was a few but a very small amount. I was one of the original people.

So Edini and a few others were around in 2007. Most of the really popular ones came afterwards. So I didn't really have anyone to talk to, or to I don't know.

I mean, to be fair, I've not really had a lot of contact with any of the hypnotists online. I had some in contact with Edini. And he's a he's a legend.

He's not longer with us, not with us anymore. But he he wasn't all fancy. He just used to use his I think he uses a laptop.

And he just do the video, record it and just upload it. And it was popular. And he's been gone for three or four years and he's still got nearly 8000 subscribers, which is a lot to have once you consider you haven't been around for a long time.

He also did magic as well. So it's worth checking him out. He is Edini.

I do believe if you put Edini hypnotist. Yeah, he's got quite a few magic videos. He used to do also do street magic as well.

He loves street magic. And the thing is, this is Jason Kenny bake make my back relax. There's not even a name next to your picture.

I can't see your picture. Do you have a name? I can't even see it's just like a light bulb or something. Can I make your back relax? I could recommend if you go to my YouTube channel, and just look and look through it because there are relaxation sessions for back relaxation.

Or if you go Google, put back relaxation, Jason Newland. I can't search myself because I'm using all my things. My laptop's over there uploading a video from yesterday to YouTube, which is going to be all night long.

All night long. All night. Let me know if you find it on there because I can't really search it myself.

Right now. Otherwise, go to my website, Jason newlands.com. My podcast online, I've got 1000s and 1000s of recordings, videos, I found nearly 4000 videos on YouTube. And I've got 1000s of podcast episodes.

The Let Me Bore You To Sleep. I'm now over 1500 episodes. Let Me Bore You To Sleep now.

And bearing in mind that I don't know how long we've been doing it for. But for quite a while, I've been doing six versions of each recording. One with music, one without music, five and 10 hours with and without music.

And so just gives you an option. They're only available on the podcast. And on my website.

They're not available on YouTube. But do make the video available on YouTube, but the whole thing, but no music or anything. Also, I do upload every new video to TikTok and Instagram, but can only upload just under a minute and just under a minute just under an hour, each one.

So if you want to watch the whole thing, you need to go to YouTube, or if you want to listen to the whole thing, go to my website or find it on whatever podcast host that you listen to. So I think part of what I try and do is with these recordings is I hope that just by listening to me, it's kind of not a quiet space.

Because I know, in real life, it can be hectic.

It can be drama and all that stuff, maybe. And maybe you put your headphones on, you might be in a household of people talking and whatever. So just to have a little bit of a space.

And on YouTube, there's a lot going on TikTok, there's a lot of people arguing and drama and stuff. So this is a place where you come to that is not going to have that. Now, I don't block anyone, whatever they write down.

I can't see it anyway, my eyesight hardly on TikTok. But I'm hoping that as time goes, as time goes by, that people realize what I'm about on Instagram and TikTok. And maybe more people will kind of find me again on YouTube.

Because ironically, that was my main platform for seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, seven years. So for seven years, I was a YouTuber. And it was going fairly well, actually, kind of well, not, I wasn't no superstar, but it was.

I was well known as amongst the hypnotists on YouTube, I was quite, quite known. And every now and then people contact me and say, they post on the videos, I can't believe I found you after 10 years. Where have you been? And even though my podcast, my YouTube channel has been up there, the new one for eight years, YouTube has not been pushing my videos to anybody to watch.

Because I don't know, I guess because I've not been regular or whatever. And for quite a while, I've been just posting the podcast episodes. But now I don't do that anymore.

I just post the videos. If you want to listen to the podcast, you're welcome to come to my website, or go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, so many different places. And you can listen, you've got a choice of six different things.

So Harry wanted to join my thing. I don't take any requests to join, I'm afraid, on TikTok, because the only person talking is me. Because this is, because I'm recording a podcast, you see, and also for my video, YouTube video.

So it's, it's just me talking. I mean, I can answer questions, if you have questions, or if you want to say something nice. And so I got 232 likes, thank you, it's very kind of you, whoever posted those likes.

And I think I've got about 200. Well, I got 100. I think I've got less than 200 followers on TikTok.

I think I'm following about 220. So yeah, this is still early days, very early days for me on TikTok. And keep saying the word TikTok.

So I'm gonna stop. So yeah, basically, Boston Chicky said to me, JJ, because we used to Skype, we should talk quite a bit on Skype. And we did, didn't we Boston? We did.

It's a while back. But yeah, wow. We used to chat.

I'm sure, I'm talking to Boston now. He was doing, you were decorating or something once when we were chatting. And your kids were little.

Now they're kind of all grown up. Wow. So I started doing that.

And then I was doing, someone said to me, and I don't know who it was, it might have been Boston again, it might, I think it was a few people that just said to me, why don't you start doing ASMR videos? And I said, I don't know what that is. And I think Boston did mention it to me. I think a couple of other people pointed out to me that I was already doing ASMR videos.

And I should label them because then I get more views. I still get people saying that now on my videos. Like label it ASMR.

You're softly spoken. Especially like the whisper ones. It's the whisper ones definitely, I guess would be kind of classed as ASMR.

But I did that for a while. And I did have, yeah, I've got a fair following. I didn't like huge amounts, but I had about, according to one of my followers, they told me because I've forgotten.

They said I had about three and a half thousand subscribers, which I know is obviously not a huge amount. But for me, it's pretty good. I was getting 45,000 video views a month, and it was going up.

So every month it was going up and up and up and up. And I just had a, I had a mind mind fart and ended up getting rid of the channel. But I wasn't very well at the time.

So who knows if I'd have kept it going. You know, because what is probably now 13 years later, I might have 3600 subscribers. I might be mildly popular, or popular might as far as subscribers goes.

I mean, who knows? There's no way knowing is there. But I've realized I've done a bit of research. One of the problems that I have, when it comes to what I do online, and reach an audience, the, it's too, there's too much breadth.

I've been doing too many things, too many different podcasts, instead of focusing on one thing. And all the research I've done points to one thing is to stick to this podcast. Let Me Bore You To Sleep, have everything under here under this umbrella.

In fact, not have it as an umbrella, just have it as my, my trademark, my what I'm known as what I'm known for, for being boring, being one of the most boring people on the planet. So yeah, it's not something I would have kind of, it's not a moniker I would have aspired to when I was a younger lady, but hey, and that's been it's hard in some ways, because I have urges sometimes to do something completely different.

Maybe urges isn't the right word, because that sounds a bit weird.

Oh, I hear you have urges do you? You know, sometimes I just want to, you know, like you could be doing, you could be studying doing karate, and then you think, you know what, I want to do some boxing now. I want to learn judo, or you might be studying psychology. And it's like, I suddenly become interested in geography, never knew I was, but I'm kind of very fascinated with rivers, rivers, for some reason.

And if you're on a degree course, you can't kind of do that. And if you're working your way to a black belt in karate, you can perhaps do a little bit of stuff on the side, but you really kind of need to concentrate on what you're doing. Because if you spread yourself too thin, it could affect the outcome.

So I think I've spread myself a bit too, shall I say thick, thin, too thin. So the only thing that is thin about me is my spreading, definitely not my midsection. And that's part of the reason why I'm now doing regular videos on YouTube.

Because, and also why I go on TikTok, post my videos on TikTok. Because if I come on there for a couple of hours, I might get a couple of new followers, I might get a couple of people think, got to see what he's up to. And it might be useful.

Like that person said, can you relax my back? I don't know if that would be serious. But yeah, I could relax your back. I can I can help with back pain.

And relaxation is the thing really. But you know what I like to think? I mean, if I was, there's so many different ways to get to the same destination. Regarding relaxation.

So, like if you're in a relationship with someone, and this is going to sound weird, but you know what, something that'd be really good, I should be like a marriage counselor or something. I shouldn't. There's so many ways that you can relax each other.

Like intimately without, you know, I'm not talking like, intimately as an adult, I'm talking just being kind. So, you know, if you're, your partner gets home. And if you've got the energy yourself, you could wash their feet.

I mean, some traditions, that's a thing, that's a thing, you wash your partner's feet. And I'm talking about either person, not just one, one hierarchical person in the relationship, washing the other person's feet, because it's part of their tradition or faith, faith or anything like that. I don't mean like that, just generally doing something nice, running a bath for them or shaving their back.

I don't know. Because there's so many ways that you can relax somebody, or that someone can be relaxed. We've all got our own ways that we can be relaxed.

But I don't believe, or I'll change it to a positive. I believe that there are many ways that everyone who's listening or watching this can be relaxed that you don't even know about yet. I'll give you an example.

Here's something I think I find relaxing. Yeah. If you just touch, go put your finger on one hand, if you're right, if you've got both hands, if you put your finger on, you've got both hands available.

I mean, you know, it put one finger, I normally use the that one, the middle finger. I don't know why it's called its middle isn't middle finger. So that's the index, that's the ring finger, that's the, the that one.

So if you put one hand doesn't have to be either one, and just rest it on your knuckle gently. Now if you've got a bad hand or sore hand, or it kind of some kind of painful condition in your hand, then don't do this, obviously. But if your hand feels fine, and you know, then if you want to do this, then give it a go.

All you do is just very gently. And you're focusing just on your finger. Very gently, just move it very slowly down.

Now it doesn't even have to be on the skin, it can just be directly above the skin. Or so you're not pushing down, like that's not going to do it. Yeah.

I've seen people do massages in the past. And they look like they were trying to push their fingers through the person's spine. I was like, that's probably not very relaxing for them.

Oh, I don't know my own strength. Yeah, you do. Sorry.

You know, some people say, oh, don't know my own strength, I'm just too strong. Okay. Well, how come when you held that baby earlier, the baby's still alive? You didn't crush it, did you? No.

Well, you do know your own strength, then you do know how to be gentle and soft. Oh, I didn't think about that. Yeah, we can all be gentle.

Just because someone's got like shovels for hands, and they're super strong, they can still be gentle. Even bears and tigers can be gentle. You think a bear picking up a cub, like one wrong move and that cub could be squashed.

I don't know why that's not funny. But they're so gentle. And lions so gentle with their bear, with the bear cubs, with the lions, the little cubs, they're cubs as well, kittens.

Are lions and tiger babies called kittens? Because I've got a feeling they're called cubs. And I don't know why they're not called kittens, because cats, baby cats are called kittens. Or is it because tigers and lions are so tough, that they don't dare call the babies kittens, in case they find out.

In case when they get older, they come looking for you. I don't know. So yeah, so you're not pushing down on it, not trying to break your finger, not trying to prove how strong you are.

All it is, is just gently from the knuckle and just let it go down, all the way down to your nail. To your nail. Just very, very gently and slowly as well.

The slower you do it, the more relaxing it feels. It's pleasurable as well. And you can do it on all the different fingers.

Do it on the small finger first. Oh, that little bit there. That's very pleasurable.

Do it on that finger. Yeah. So the top, that bit and that bit there, just underneath the midsection of the... Oh, it's very, very sensitive.

Which is weird, because technically, that's sensitive. Yeah. I can feel it.

I could go in my bedroom and punch the punch bag. Nothing. Wouldn't feel anything.

I'd feel it, but you know, I'm not talking hard, but you know, it's not like I'd be like, oh, because it's so sensitive. But yet, if you're really gentle with it, really, really sensitive. Which makes me think about, if you think about your finger, and you think about your partner, or a person you love, a person you live with or whatever, or just people in general, people in general, the more gentle you treat them, the more sensitive they become, the more perceptive, is that the right word?

And receptive, that's the right word, isn't it? The more receptive they may become to the kindness and to the gentleness.

Oh, I quite surprised myself. But going back to your back, so these are things that I do. You can do it on your hand, you can do it on your arm, especially if the room temperature is quite cool.

Because these are things that I play around with. These are things that I do. I do this in bed.

Perhaps I've got a bit too much spare time on my hands, but it's just things like this. If you just, not even quick, but if you just go like that with your hands, just either side of your face. And you can feel the air on your face, but you can also feel maybe tingling, relaxing tingling, a nice kind of relaxation.

But you can feel it in your fingers and your arms and your shoulders, because it's gentle movement, really gentle movement, almost like non-movement in a way. But of course, I only ever do this if it feels okay to do it. You know, as long as... So I have problems with my shoulders.

I've got an injured right shoulder and my other left shoulder is problematic as well. It comes and goes. Probably, maybe it's more arthritis, I don't know.

But when I'm just doing that, bearing in mind to do that kind of needs your shoulders to participate in the movement. My shoulders are just relaxed, completely relaxed. Like they just drop down.

And I do have a tendency of kind of not hunched over, but I kind of probably tense in my shoulders a bit too much sometimes. And I'm just so relaxed in just that gentle movement. Or you can even just go like that.

Put your hand towards your face and then move away again. And it's almost like ripples in a lake. Like the stone's gone in, but the ripples continue.

So you've done this and you're moving away and it's still, there's still that aftermath of coolness on your face. Yeah. Number one says, how are your shoulders feeling today? My shoulders are feeling really, really relaxed right now.

Thank you. It feels okay. I'm sorry if I've missed any messages on here, because I do get a little bit carried away with what I'm talking about.

But there's so many ways like that you can help relax another person. You can help relax yourself, but if you've got someone else to do it. So there's certain things I can't do myself and I don't have anyone else to do it for me, but it's like if you've got a partner, we could just be a friend.

It doesn't have to be like a love, a lover relationship, whatever, but you can stroke their back. I mean, that's, that is kind of fairly intimate, isn't it? To do something like that. But it's so relaxing to have someone do that.

Just stroking your back, regardless if you've got your top on or top off, you can even have your clothes on just to have that gentle movement down your back. And it stimulates the body, it stimulates the sense of relaxation, stimulates your spine, which then sends those signals to your brain to check what they are. What is this feeling? And your brain decides it's comfortable, it's comfort, it's relaxing.

And it sends those signals back to your spine, which sends those signals to your body so that you feel comfortable and calm and your back starts to relax. And I used to do massage, like I actually went to college to do massage in 2003. I didn't think I didn't finish the whole holistic course.

But I finished the the massage part. All I was left was to do the exam, you know, the what for the massage. But there was other things on the course as well, like reflexology, aromatherapy.

What else? Yeah, but we were yeah, anatomy and stuff like that. It was just a year long course. So I did what did I do? I did one term, which isn't you know, so not enough.

I didn't I didn't get any diplomas or anything, but I did a lot of practicing. So I had quite a few people outside of the course that I practiced on. And I think that massage, provided it's done gently, or at the adequate touch level, you know, it can be amazing.

But massage might not be the right thing for someone who's got a bad back though. I mean, that's definitely go to the doctor's time and see a specialist. Don't ever take advice from someone on YouTube when it comes to medical stuff, or physical, medical, you know, YouTube is not the place for that.

You need to see a specialist. But if you've got a knotted back, or if you've got, maybe you've got pain in your back because of your body build, the build of your body. And so I'm mainly upper body.

I do have a lower body as well, but like I'm mainly upper body. And because I'm not slim, there is pressure put on my back from my midsection, shall we say. Do you mean your big fat belly? Yeah, but I didn't want to say that because it sounds rude to me, doesn't it? Altogether, Jason's got a big fat belly, belly, belly, belly, and it's smelly.

Thank you. So it might be something that you kind of learn to deal with, you learn to live with, you learn to adapt with, but ways you can relax it. And sometimes, you know, by focusing your mind on stuff, by focusing your mind on feeling relaxed, or listening to a podcast, listening to someone like me, droning on, can calm your mind down, slow your mind down.

So even though this is not hypnosis, it could still have the same beneficial effect as listening to a relaxation hypnosis session. Because if you know what you want, you know what you want, how you want to feel. And if you listen to me, you listen for an hour or two hours, and you realize that actually listening to me causes you to feel more relaxed because of my super exciting voice.

Or you fall asleep. Every time you listen to me, then you're going to expect that to happen. And expectation leads to the likelihood of it happening.

Really Vinnie, can you make a bit more noise, please? I gave him a bone earlier, which is probably not a good idea. So you start to get used to feeling more relaxed. And then you know, you've got a new recording coming out from me and you think, oh, okay, I'll listen to Juicy JJ and you feel relaxed again.

And that is kind of normal. It's quite standard. Blimey, this thing's falling off as I'm talking, it's falling off the wall.

I need to nail it in. But I can't do that until tomorrow. Weird.

I'll tell you what's weird, though. What weirder, weirder is it seems like this wall is not straight. And I don't understand that.

How can the wall not be straight? Because I've tried to stick everything the same level, right next to each other, each pad, and they're all square unless they're not the same size. And it seems to be going in different directions. I don't quite know what that's all about.

So what does that mean? What does that mean? Go live with guests? Oh, okay. No, that means someone's asked to join. Sorry, can't have anyone join.

But thanks for asking. I wonder what people would say if they did join. I don't know.

I don't know. I have no idea. What? Wow, you're cute.

Oh, thank you. It's very kind of you, Samantha. STG says hi.

Hi. So hi from Nina. Hi, Nina.

Single? Yep. Single. Ready to dingle, dangle, bingle.

Daddy chase me asks me so let's do a few questions. Come on then TikTok. Give me some questions.

We'll have a little question break. Daddy chase me. I don't believe that's your real name.

Either that or your parents were a little bit cheeky. Do you live with your mother? No, I don't have a mother. I live with my Jack Russell, a little Jack Russell dog.

If you can't see it, he's down there somewhere. And STG says, thanks for mentioning me and my... Wow. Okay.

Thanks for mentioning me and my bereavement when I message you for my son's profile. Okay. I wasn't expecting that.

You know, STG, I can't remember what your name was now. But no worries. I know I have... I get so many messages on here when I'm on here of people asking me to do weird things and saying, like, do you live with your mother and those kinds of things.

And then I get a serious one. And I forget, because it's not many, like, genuine, like Samantha saying that I was cute and stuff, you know. So it's like, we all know that I'm cute, obviously, but it's... I think a 90 year old would like me.

I'm glad that you made people aware that it's okay not to be okay. It is. That is so important, though, isn't it? And I know that sometimes in society in there's kind of this, there's a real English thing as well.

But I think it's like all over is that stiff upper lip kind of don't show your emotions and pretend that everything's okay. But you know, sometimes it's not. And also the asking for help.

We have to ask for help sometimes. Everybody has to ask for help. At some point in their life, everybody needs help.

Okay, they might not ask for it, but everybody needs help in their life at some point. At any age, it could be any age. I mean, when you're a little kid, if you fall over and you can't get up, you shout for help, don't you? So it's almost if you're a little baby and you want to get out, you can't, you put your hands up.

I mean, you might not know what you're doing. But like automatically, we ask for help. That's an automatic thing that we're born with.

Somewhere along the line, it seems to be squashed a bit. And maybe we need to sort of get back to that ability to ask for help. And for me, this is just my own personal experience.

There's nothing better than helping people. I've been doing this 20 years now. And it's the best thing I ever did with my life.

I could have done. And yeah, I'm not not made any money. I'm not rich.

I'm not living some kind of amazing lifestyle. But along the line, I've helped 1000s of people. A lot of a lot of people told me that I've helped them.

And it feels nice, you know, just open the door for someone or if someone drops something on the floor, and you like, hey, and you pick up and hand it to them. It feels nice, you get a feeling that you're like, Oh, well, I do. I don't know.

I can't talk for everybody. But it's a nice feeling. And as far as not being okay.

Because I've got bipolar. I'm not okay. A lot of the time, unfortunately.

But I don't tell people about it generally, because I tell people about bipolar because it's not a secret. And but when my dad phones up, I generally don't tell him what's going on. Because I think he feels helpless to help.

You know, I mean, he's, he doesn't know what's going to do, because he doesn't understand it. And I don't want him worrying either. But you know, sometimes, you know, if I have to ask for help, I will.

This thing's falling off the wall. STG says you really helped me to sleep during my loss. I hope you know that you're appreciated.

Please never stop. Thank you. And I'll be in the summer last summer, I lost a friend, Uncle sausages, who lives opposite me, what he used to live opposite me.

And Vinnie used to call him Uncle sausages, because he used to give me used to put sausages through the door through the through the letterbox for Vinnie. And he used to call Vinnie sausages, sausages. And so it's kind of an ongoing joke and stuff.

And without going into details, he got ill and he passed away. So I really did have a rethink of what I wanted to do. And I didn't know if I was going to continue doing this.

Because I tell you what it is, it's a few things. Paddy says evening. Hi.

Hi, Paddy. It's a few things is there was just what he went through. And when it came to he, I think to the main thing three is the actual event itself.

So like, you know, well, but his flat was full of stuff that nobody wanted. And the council came and chucked out the window into a skip. His personal belongings that he'd pictures of his family, whatever, just all of his stuff chucked.

He had no living relatives. He's 79. He had his 79th birthday in hospital.

And see, so for Hannah says, say and Julian is an acute hemorrhoid. Read the room, baby. I'm talking about something.

And so that made me think, you know, chucking his stuff out, like his whole, his whole belongings were nothing. And then his funeral, there was four of us, four people, including the person that was actually doing a ceremony. There's more, more pallbearers than there was people at the funeral.

And I just thought, this is me in 25 years. 24 years, in fact, 24 years time, if I'm still around, this could be me. And I didn't like that.

It felt I didn't like, I didn't like it, didn't like it at all. So I kind of started to reconsider what am I doing? Why am I doing it? Is there any point to it and all that stuff without getting all heavy, but I spoke to someone and spoke to a friend and I got a phone call from my friend Brooke. And we chatted and she reminded me of how useful I am, or, you know, kind of how what I do is help people and sort of, I suppose, try and get in touch with what is important to me.

Because, you know, I'm 55 now. I'm kind of heading towards the older years. I'm still, still, still around, still okay.

But I'm getting rounder, not as round as my head. Look at that thing. And I don't know.

So it took it took me a little while to read it. I was still I'm still making recordings though. So I didn't stop making recordings, but I really, I just couldn't figure out what to do.

I chucked a lot of my belongings out thinking this is just going to be something that some stranger chucks into a bin or chucks out the window. I thought I'm not having that. So I kind of lost the plot a little bit.

And I started trying to think, well, okay, it's not just about helping other people. What do I enjoy doing? What do why do I do it? Why did I start doing it in 2006, 20 years ago? And it was because I wanted to help people. But then why did I continue doing it? There was more to it than that.

It's like, okay, I felt like I was helping people, but I was also enjoying it. So it has to be enjoyable. Otherwise, I'm not going to do it.

Why it's not true. I've done it when it's not been enjoyable. But you know, it needs to be both.

It needs to be even. So it's I'm helping people, but I'm also doing something that's fun. And out of all the stuff I do to Let Me Bore You To Sleep recordings, even though this is taking a little serious dip, but I'll get it back.

Is this is the one that's more fun than anything else I do. And it's the closest to the Jason chats that I used to do the vlogs. I've come full circle, Boston chicky, the vlogs.

And that when I first started doing the Let Me Bore You To Sleep, eight years ago, nearly. My plan was to mix together hypnosis and vlogging, you know, talk about my life and hypnosis sort of intertwined as it were. Because I used to do a podcast or I did a video series called what was it called? Hypno chats.

That's it. Hypno, I think about 18 or 12 or 18. Hypno chats, where I would start off talking about my life, how's the day going? And then just gradually make it slower, gradually make it slower, more still gradually turn the attention from what I was saying, to how I was feeling, and then to how they were feeling.

And then, you know, and then the last like 30% of the time, focus completely on them being more and more relaxed. So I did quite a few of those. And they lasted for about an hour, I suppose.

And I used to record on my iPhone in a big echoey room, which a therapy room I used to work in. And the thing is, some other benefits have come from doing the podcasts and the videos back in 2006. If I hadn't done this, chances are I wouldn't have ended up going to university and getting a degree in counselling, which meant that's a few, a few more hundred people that I wouldn't have helped.

You know, when I was practicing, so I did it for a few years. So I probably had a few hundred clients over that time. So some people were helped by me, some people benefited from me doing that degree.

And in some ways, I benefited as well. One of the reasons is because I really didn't believe until that point that I was able to do a degree. I didn't think I could accomplish it.

And I didn't have that belief. And that belief isn't necessarily there anymore, to be fair, because it's been a while since I got it. The idea of going back 15 years later is kind of scary if I if I was to go back, but it was an experience that I wouldn't swap.

And it was, it wasn't, it wasn't the same kind of experience as a lot of younger people get when they go to university. Because I, I wasn't living in halls of residence, halls of residence, whatever. I wasn't going out and having fun and doing freshers week and all that stuff because I was 30.

I just turned 37 when the course started. And I was 40 when I got my degree. So yeah, it was November was end of August, I got my, I became 40.

2010. And November was the I always forget the name of it, the ceremony, the degree ceremony, the passing out parade, whatever it's called, you know, when you get your certificate. So, and you dress up in those black things with the hats.

I don't know why I always seem to remember that name. I don't understand why. And yeah, it was kind of I was glad to have done it and I achieved something I didn't think I'd achieve.

Or I didn't believe that I could have done ever. I didn't think that was even possible for me to to gain a degree bearing in mind that I didn't get one qualification at school. Not one, nothing like I left school as if I'd never even been.

When I went back 10 years after leaving, to see if they had any of my school records, so I could like look at and I said, no, we, we burnt them all. Serious, that's what they said. We burnt them all.

I said, really? He said, yeah. I mean, I don't know if they burn everyone's, but that seemed a bit dodgy, doesn't it? To burn a record of a high school students, like academic record, including every test they took and attendance, sickness, maybe parents evenings, disciplinaries, things like that, that are kind of kept on record. I suppose inoculations as well, things like that.

Nothing, all gone. Like I didn't even exist. Talk about inoculations.

When I went to volunteer at the NHS, at the hospital, it turned out because they have to do blood tests to make sure that you're kind of covered for everything. I wasn't covered for measles. My whole life, childhood, adulthood, up to like early 40s, 44, 45, wasn't covered for measles.

Can you believe it? I wasn't covered in measles all that time. I can't believe it. Absolutely ridiculous.

So I had to have another one. And I think there was something else I wasn't covered for. I forget what it was.

Syphilis? Is that a thing? I don't know. So yeah. What's her name? What was I talking about? Boston Chickie.

So I met her. I met quite a few different people in that time, back in 2010, 11. And they were all doing this.

I forget what it's called, but it was a 365 day vlog challenge. You could start it at any time. So you didn't have to start it at the beginning of the year.

But the idea was you do a vlog, video vlog every single day. And you numbered it. And then when you got to 365, confetti would blow out of your ears.

I don't know. It used to be like, probably wouldn't be a firework display, but everyone would be saying, well done, you know. And at the beginning, it seems like it's exciting and it doesn't feel like a chore.

It's like, this is going to be easy. You know, one thing I've never had problems with is talking. I can just talk and talk and talk about nothing for hours, which is what I do.

It's why this recording is called Let Me Bore You To Sleep, because that's what I do. I just talk about nothing. And it's, it's my secret power.

It's my secret power. And so thank you, STG for what you said. I'm glad that I was able to help just realized if I've missed any messages on TikTok, then I do apologize.

Because I'm trying to balance different things at the same time, you know. So I started doing these vlogs and I was going through quite a weird period. I was also going through a hyper stage, which I didn't realize about it, because at the time I hadn't been diagnosed.

So I didn't know. I knew I'd go. I knew that in my life, there'd be periods of time when I didn't really need hardly any sleep at all.

And I'd be awake early, you know, like I got to go to bed and be up four hours later, and still be widely alert and awake and excited for the day and whatever. But I used to like those periods. But then I didn't necessarily like some stuff that I did.

If I kept busy, stayed at home, kept busy, I was okay. But if I started to interact with other people, that's when sometimes the problems would arise. And problems arose.

It's just like that is what happened back then. And also I started to, I didn't realize, but I started to act a bit weird on camera. And there's once when I actually poured a yogurt over my head.

And my cousin who was watching, she watched a video and she said, I'm a little bit concerned. Are you all right? I said, yeah, I love yogurt. And it's like, okay.

And then there's one video where I just kept saying wibbly wobbly. And I couldn't stop laughing. I was in hysterics, laughing at wibbly wobbly, just those two words, wibbly wobbly.

But not just like, like, absolutely in hysterics, going on and on and on and on and on repeating myself, wibbly wobbly. Because I was trying to think of a new name for my podcast. It's a man with a beard pretending to think that's one of my favorites.

I still like that one pretending to think. I did say that. It was bad.

I said that to someone years ago. It was like 1996. I was with someone and my friend said, you're right to my girlfriend.

And I said, yeah, so she's just pretending to think. And it was just a joke. And I didn't mean it horribly.

But I did. It's like, and she, she probably hit me. But she knew it wasn't I wasn't being serious or putting down or anything.

But she was way more intelligent than me anyway. But I realized afterwards, it's actually quite a funny line. If you don't do it cruelly, you know, which I didn't.

I didn't. I didn't. It's just the idea of pretending to think.

It's just still tickles me a little bit. So that was I used to call my one of my podcasts pretend to think the bearded something. And then I came up the idea like wibbly wobbly and I was kind of in hysterics, which isn't really me.

I'm not really I laugh at something, but I'm not going to be hysterically rolling around the floor. I'm not I have done that in the past, but generally, you know, not unaided, as it were. And I didn't even realize that anything was wrong.

And then I got into a situation. And then I reacted by doing something had a like a mind blip or mind fart, whatever you want to call it, and destroyed a bunch of stuff. So I went to the doctor for this is this is becoming a bit too.

It's really nice at the beginning. And then it goes it takes a different level. It goes from being like, happy, I suppose, to being really happy.

To them being uncomfortable. It's like uncomfortably, that energy goes up to goes up too high for me. And and that used to sometimes lead to panic attacks and stuff as well.

And I didn't realize it was almost like I couldn't take the there's too much pleasure. Which is weird, really, because like, surely, there shouldn't ever be too much pleasure. But there was.

It is I couldn't. And it was it was physical, as well as mental. It was like, a whole load of stuff.

And so I ended up going to the doctor. This is 2010. This is probably about September time.

And August time. And so the doctor doctor put me on antidepressants, but then said, she looked back at my record, my record, my medical record. And it seemed that I'd been on and off antidepressants since 1995.

And looked at my all the different things I've kind of been diagnosed with over the years. So she said, well, you need to see another psychiatrist. So made an appointment.

And I saw a psychiatrist in December, and had a long consultation. And also had a lot of information that was already in my documents anyway, from the doctors previous because I'd had anxiety, PTSD, I've been all doctors diagnosed with all these different things. And then the psychiatrist says bipolar.

So put me on some medication. I didn't like the medication. So I stopped taking it.

Not a good move. And then 2000, 2010, 11, 12, 13. So 2013, I have a relapse proper, proper, full on, full on.

And to be fair, no, I was, yeah, it happened more than once. It was, it was a weird one. But then I was working and I kind of had to stop.

And then I got sent to another psychiatrist, then another psychiatrist, then another, I literally went and saw about four or five psychiatrists, probably three psychiatrists, but over five different attendances. And they decided amongst themselves that I was bipolar and also had a emotionally unstable personality disorder. And then I spent about a year with the psychologist.

And she used to have weekly sessions with me doing, I forget the name of it. Hello, I don't know if the microphone is muted. I tried to mute it.

He threw me right off. Absolutely. There was no, there was no one at the door.

He goes like, honestly, scared the hell out of me. Absolutely scared me. For no reason.

There was no one at the door. It was pointless, pointless exercise. And if there was anyone, they'd still be there because we literally went straight to the door.

So it wasn't, you know, it's like, he doesn't normally do that. It's because I got no music playing. The TV's not on.

All he's got is just me talking. And it's not enough to distract him from outside sounds, such as a neighbor going into their own front door, which they should be allowed to do for you without hearing you barking. Don't ignore me.

So, God threw me off. Honestly, so I get relaxed while I do these recordings. And then, when he starts barking, wow, it takes that relaxation away.

And luckily, I edit this out of the video and the podcast, of course. But I can relax the game is fine. It just shook me up.

It's no warning. I wish he'd just at least growl first. Like a little bit like a like a little really crappy moped like Okay, it's not a very good example.

But you know, just a little bit, a bit of a throttle, a little bit of a bit of a something. But no, it's like, yeah, straight away, full blast. Oh, dear.

What are we doing? Loving the stories, mate. Thank you. And apologies for anyone who's listening.

And he started barking because that was loud. Proper loud. Anyone who's listening live or watching live? Wow.

No, there's no one at my door. Because if there was, then they'd still be there. No one put anything through the door.

Mind you, sometimes we get deliveries and they walk up to my door, see the sign on the letterbox saying, go away. Don't put crap through my door, please. And then they walk away.

Sometimes they still put stuff through, which is just kind of strange. I mean, to be fair, most of the rubbish I get through my letterbox is from the post office. So the post postman lady, she's basically a very well paid leaflet deliverer.

Nearly every time she delivers a letter, it's leaflets with it. And sometimes just leaflets, no letters at all. And that's what kids used to get paid to do.

Adults didn't used to deliver leaflets. It was children, part time job. I did it.

I mean, that's what I used to do when I was a kid. I had, as well as the morning and evening paper rounds that I had. I didn't always have them both at the same time, but sometimes I did.

I would have a I think it was a fortnightly town crier thing, which was like a like a booklet thing. Not a big booklet, but I used to deliver a few thousand of those. And I think it was once a month, there would be another one, which was and I would deliver a lot of those.

I would literally spend yeah, quite a bit of time delivering those. I remember my brother. When my brother lived, there was this storage bit at the back of his room.

And the parents found all these thousands and thousands of leaflets all like hidden. And I thought, wow, he got in trouble. And I thought, I'm glad that I realized that I did that.

I didn't do that, of course. I said to him, why don't you just do what everyone else does, just chuck them in the river. I'm joking.

Thank you very much. Finn says, Hello, sir. Hello, sir.

Hello, Finn. I used to deliver them. But it was a key.

I never did a Sunday newspaper around. Tell you why. Because I did one once for my brother.

Oh, please. No, I don't want to do it. Oh, please.

Just be your best friend. So I kind of. All right.

Because you know, I did early morning paper round. I didn't want to get up on a Sunday. I'll get up early every day of the week, except a Sunday.

I wanted to have that rest. But okay, I'll do it. The paper bags, the papers were so heavy.

I mean, I literally it ruined my shoulder. Too heavy. Each paper was massive.

It's a Sunday newspaper that twice the size of a normal paper. Magazines inside all that stuff. And I thought never again.

And I kept to it. I could have done a Sunday newspaper around anytime I wanted. And I said no, no, no.

I honestly I used to get head funded, head funded, head hunted. Please. No.

What's the shadow behind me? It's me. It's called a shadow. That's what say.

Angelina says, Hey, can you say no, not to say anything. Because the thing is, I don't know, you might say, Oh, can you say whatever person's a good girl or whatever? The thing is, that might be something that that person might not like hearing. And I don't want to get involved in stuff like that, you know? Just in case.

So the shadow behind me, dude, dude, it's just a made up name, isn't it? You put on there. It's me and the chair, the back of the chair. Or is it a ghost? Dun, dun, dun.

I love it when that happens. So I'm trying to think. Yeah, so I advise never do a Sunday newspaper around.

Too heavy. That stuff is not right. It's not right.

Oh, leaflets. That's what I used to do. So I used to deliver these little leaflets.

1000s upon 1000s upon 1000s. I pretty much do half the town. Literally, it was just so many.

And I wasted so much of my time delivering those things. You know, at school all week, and then on Saturday, all day, and sometimes on a Sunday, all day delivering those leaflets. For what a few quid really wasn't worth it.

And it's good exercise, you know, got a lot of walking done. You know, probably 10 miles a day or whatever it was. But I mean, if someone comes here and he's delivering leaflets and he's it looks like he's in his 30s.

Which is fine. I mean, I don't know if there's any age thing, but I'm just wondering, is there any money in it? Maybe it was a pound a leaflet, I would do it. Because literally, you could be rich.

You can make like 34. You could do what you could at least do 1000 a day. So yeah, 30 grand a month, I think a lot of people would say yes to that.

But it definitely ain't a pound pound a leaflet that they're delivering. So a pound 1000 maybe a pound 100 be one pence, a pound 1000. So to deliver 10 for one pence.

Is that right? So every 10 houses of one pence, another 10 houses of one pence. So you deliver 100 houses a 10 no. Did I say 100 for 1000 for a pound 100 for a pound 100 for a pound maybe not 1000 for a pound.

That's ridiculous. That'd be so let's say 100 for a pound 1000 for 10 pound. But it's going to take you all day to deliver 1000.

So you're getting 10 pounds for 1000 leaflets. So it's got to be more than that. Plus, I, when I was doing a paper round, it was a pound wasn't like it was okay.

You know, it wasn't a pound and never been a huge amount of money in my lifetime. But it's definitely was worth a lot more then than it is now. Yes, you'd better get a bag of sherbet and some couple of Mars bars.

I think Mars bars were like five or 10 pence. Get a can of coke for 20 pound and cans of coke were like 10 15 20 pence. And now they're what a 150 used to have penny chews when I was a little kid.

Penny chews. Penny don't even make pennies anymore. Literally, the whoever makes money.

They've stopped making penny coins. They've not taken all the ones out of circulation. And I do wonder what's going to happen for all those nine pound 99 things.

And people are paying by cash. But of course, time is going to come when there is no cash. A cashless society.

Because you won't be able to give you change, will they? Well, it's 999. Okay, where's my one penny change? I noticed when I was in London, there's a lot of people there. I don't know if it was their custom to not even bother giving change if they didn't have to.

The amount of times I had to ask, where's my change? And they give it to me. Then I'd count and said, it's got a pound missing. And they'd laugh.

I mean, they knew me, but it's still like, come on, mate. Play the game. You've got to give me the real amount of money.

So you'd think if it was someone that you see them every day, you have a laugh with them, you chat with them. They're the people that you shouldn't have to check that they've given you the correct change. I mean, honestly, sometimes it wouldn't even like my corner shop, my local corner shop in Stratford.

Honestly, sometimes you wouldn't even try and give me you just like to distract me so I wouldn't get any change. And I'd go to leave. So wait a minute.

And they'd just be laughing. You have to change in his hand to give to me. Then of course, I'd check and it'd be short.

I say it's a pound short. Yeah, but it's a lot more than what you would have had. Here's something that really happened.

Because the rest of what I say is lies, isn't it? Obviously, some of it. I took my girlfriend, this is 1996. She came round me house in Stratford.

And I'm kind of showing her around a little bit. I was like, okay, this is my local corner shop. So I had two local corner shops.

One I used to go to more when I lived up the other side of the road. And then I lived up this side of the road. There's like 10 minute walk between.

And but I was just this closer to this side. So then that was my local corner shop again. So I took her in there.

And the way it was designed is literally, you go in, you turn right, and that's the counter over there. Everything to the left hand side is just sweets. Just sweets, bags of stuff that you can buy, maybe a few bits.

And then on the right hand side, there's all the magazines were there. And at the bottom of all the papers, like the daily papers. And on the counter, there was on the front of the counter, like, because he was behind the counter, there'd be all the local daily papers as well.

And then behind the him, there'd be the cigarettes. And I think there's alcohol as well. So you could buy stuff like that was an off license as well, I think.

But I'm not 100% sure. There's no way you're gonna know. I mean, doesn't really matter.

I could just make it up, can't I? So he was a cheeky young lad. He wasn't young, he was old. He was probably in his 70s then.

And it was funny. And I used to go in there. And to be fair, I got to know him.

Because back in 1993, I think I started walking up to his shop, because my local corner shop didn't open until 630 or seven. He opened at five or 530 something like that. I went through a period where, oh, it's in the summer.

I was waking up early. And I'd started buying all not all of them, but I buy like four or five newspapers, and go through them and see if I could find some jokes or find something that was mildly, you know, interesting in the newspapers, and try and put it into format for stand up. And so I used to be there waiting for him because he lived upstairs.

And I'd wait for him to come down and put the old, what do they call them, the shades, the metal frame things up, protect your security things up. And he was, he only left one up, the other one was always down the whole time. And then he'd open up and it kind of like sometimes it'd be in sometimes he wouldn't be in.

So I have to wait for him. And I'd go and buy the papers and he was like, it's too early. I said, I know he was there drinking his coffee.

I think he enjoyed his life actually, because he had, he liked to chat. He had his place behind the counter. And the shop was already ready inside, because that's where he lived inside.

So he'd already come in and come through and pull the papers out and stuff. And and he has to go in there for a while for quite a few weeks, maybe months. I'd go in there nearly every morning and buy newspapers.

I couldn't afford to do that now. I mean, the papers were only like 10, 15 pence, 20 pence each, if that. So I could get all the papers I needed for a pound, pretty much.

Now I think papers are like 1, 1.50 each. It's like, what? Seriously? Or at least a pound, they're not cheap anymore. Especially if you want to get like five, five papers, five pounds a day.

Five, 10, 15, 20, that's more than 27 pounds a week. Now I think you'll find it's 35 pounds a week. Yeah.

Which is more than 27 pounds a week. I was like, right, space something wants me to say something. These things mean something to you, don't they? These weird things you want me to say? No.

The good thing about being an old man like me is, I only say what I want to say. Yeah, never mind. I'm no one's dancing monkey, I'm afraid.

I'm not here. It's like, oh, let me, let me say, what would you want me to say next? I'll say this. No, no.

I just say what I want to say. It's easier, really. So I... Yes, he was cool.

He was a nice bloke. He used to be funny, made me laugh, you know, and we'd go and I'd go in there as well, sometimes, if I had to get stuff, you know. But generally, it was just for the newspapers.

So 1996, so three years later, and I'd moved, but I was closer now. And at this, since those years, I've moved to different parts of London, I've gone to, worked at Butlins in Bognor Regis for a Christmas season and then came back and was homeless and luckily, someone put me up. And so I was living there.

And this new girlfriend, she came round. And it's kind of one of our first dates, really. It's kind of one of our first periods where we were out together like that.

And she said, so I said, Oh, do you want to come in? Because she said, I'll wait outside. I was probably just buying cigarettes or something like that. She said, or chewing gum.

She said, do you want to wait outside? I'll wait outside. I said, no, come in. I want to introduce you to him.

He's my friend. I've known him for years. Just us just.

So I went in there thinking, you know, just be nice to say hello. He's my new bird. This is how we used to talk back then.

My new bird. He's my new lady, the lady of my life. And it was polite to her, which is how we should have been.

And I asked what I wanted and gave him the money. And we turn around to go to leave. And he said, wait a second.

In his accent. He said, wait a second. I said, what? You forgot this.

That you ordered. I look around, we both look around. And it was a it was a dirty magazine.

It was like Playboy or Penthouse or something like that. And he's just holding it up, laughing his head off. And I'll admit I was embarrassed.

So it's like he thought it was hilarious to do that joke on me. And she found it funny as well. I remember saying to her, I'm so embarrassed.

She said, look, nothing you do is going to embarrass you. You're going to be embarrassed with me. That's fine.

But I bet this is the most embarrassing thing that's going to happen today. We're going to have a lovely date and I'm just going to rest of the day be fine. I said, you'd think so, wouldn't you? She said, what do you mean? I said, I suppose you can lend me some money so I can pay for that magazine.

Yeah. So, but it was so embarrassing. The thing is, the same thing happened in the other corner shop with the other end of the street.

But that was my doing this time. So I used to go in there after work, sometimes on a Saturday morning, and I'd chat with them. So they've got a security bloke there.

He used to call me Ponytail. And the bloke who owned the shop used to call me Ponytail. Didn't go in there when his wife was in there because she didn't talk to me.

But he, he loved me. So I was kind of, we used to chat and stuff. His wife didn't like me.

It's weird. And even Po, even what I forget his name now, he's Jamaican. I can't remember his name.

But we used to have such a laugh. We used to talk about everything. And we'd kind of shut up when customers came in, even though I was a customer.

But I'd stand in there for an hour, over an hour sometimes, just chatting to him and chatting, you know, we'd all be talking about different things in the, you know, in the news or whatever. And he had this spiral thing. So it was a gate, same like newsagent, this was bigger, also had like groceries, milk and stuff like that you could buy.

And there was this like stand up magazine rack that moved around near the front door. And when the front door opened, it was behind the door. It's a bit of a walk in.

I just see something I think he's Oh, what's his name says? Oh, have a look at this. So he walks over, takes one of the magazines out. So look at this, which I was shocked and I don't want to look at naked women or semi naked women, stuff like that.

It's not my thing, you know, but hey, I had to put up on that pretense of enjoying seeing naked bodies. I mean, it's just, it was embarrassing. I felt very insecure.

And it took quite a few years of therapy to, you know, move on from that. But it's fine. Anyway, so I'm looking at it thinking war.

And he walks back to the other part of the room and go to the corner where you normally stay. So I'm just looking at it. I'm literally about to put it back into the rack.

But I'm just have one last look. And the door opens and in walks this young lady who I've been trying to chat up for months and months and months. I got to the point of saying hello to sort of chit chat.

And I really liked her. I really liked her a lot. Like really liked her.

And she walks in and looks at me looks down. And luckily didn't look down again. But she's just like, there was nothing I could do.

I was caught in public looking at one of those naughty magazines. But I was only looking at it because someone else made me. That's my excuse.

He made me. They both made me look at it. I didn't want to look at it.

I was look I was reading it. You know, you could say that with Playboy because they used to have award winning articles. And award winning authors used to write stuff in Playboy.

I don't actually know that. But it's like there were like really famous writers would like write a story or do a like an essay or something. And it'd be in Playboy.

So it wasn't just and the right word is it wasn't just adult entertainment as it were. It was also educational. It was educational.

So yeah, it's really weird. I've got Oh, okay. But anyway, I'm gonna go that I'll leave you on that note as embarrassing.

So thank you for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy. Be gentle with yourself.

You deserve to feel safe. Remember, it's okay to not be okay. And also remember, it's also okay to ask for help.

Lots of love. Bye