(music) (10 hours) Traffic Jam Preventer LMBYTS #1466 Jason Newland 18th October 2025

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

I keep hearing sirens. It's a long way away. It might be just on someone's television.

I had a bit of a headache today, not like anything major, but just a little bit of a a groggy head, almost like a very, very mild hangover. It's not a hangover because I don't drink alcohol, but it's kind of just a little bit. I don't know.

I did have a fizzy drink last night. And maybe that's what it was. It's a bit too much sugar.

So that could be it. Now I was going to do like a Saturday summary today and I won't be uploading this tonight because it is currently quarter past nine in the evening. Which means when I finish this, I'm going to go straight to bed.

Oh, yes. And I'll edit it in the morning. And tomorrow I intend to do Sunday papers.

Or should I call it Sunday's newspapers? Hmm. Today, I said I was going to talk about the week, but something happened today, which was very unusual. Bearing in mind that when I leave my home, I go as far as the park and then I come home.

That's kind of it. I woke up quite early this morning. I'm not like super early, but it's like I wake up early most mornings because I go to bed early.

Can you hear that train in the background? Got my window open. Guess what I've done? I might get a photograph. I'll have to get someone else to take the photograph.

I have bought myself, well I've ordered on Amazon, a dressing gown, which I don't have. I don't have a dress. I had two dressing gowns and I gave both of them to Luke.

I don't even know how he managed to get two. I don't know how that happened, but he ended up with both of them. I've had the last two winters without a dressing gown, so I decided I'm going to get a dressing gown for this winter.

It's only a cheap old thing, but I thought I'd get XXXL because it has to be big, doesn't it? Because it's kind of like a coat, kind of. Not that I really need anything particularly warm when I'm inside because it's never cold in there. Generally, there's something else I've got.

I don't know why this makes me laugh, but I do because it's funny. It's funny to me. I haven't had any pyjamas for about eight or nine years, maybe eight years.

Someone bought me some pyjamas 10 years ago and I wore through them. I think Andre helped to chew them up a little bit as well. In fact, if I remember rightly, he completely ruined them when I wasn't wearing them.

He ended up having them as part of his bedding and he'd like to climb up the leg and go to sleep, not when I was wearing them. And for the last eight years, I've been thinking maybe I should get myself some pyjamas. Now, when I say the last eight years, I don't mean solidly.

I've just been sitting here the whole time. Should I get some pyjamas? I need to get some pyjamas for eight years because that would be more of a waste of my time than how I've spent the last eight years, mildly. And you might be thinking, what do you wear in bed then? You don't go naked, do you? No, I don't do naked.

What I do is in the summer, I will get down to just underwear. If it's really hot, like if it's like a really hot night, I will take my thermal pants off and my thermal shirt and my big socks. But other than that, you know, just underwear when it's hot.

In the winter, or when it's not hot, I wear tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt. My chair is very creaky today. When it's like really a bit cold-ish, I will wear like a cardigan or something as well.

But that's not too often. The thing is, I like to have my windows open. I don't have it wide open.

You know, I've not like got a blizzard blowing in, but it is open like on the latch, if you know what I mean. So just sort of some air coming in, like a bit of air. Like I've got the window open over there and it's not just because, I mean, it's fairly mild.

I'd have the window open in December and January, regardless of the temperature because I need to have air coming in. Should we say air one more time? Air. One more time.

So what I've done is I was looking right for the, I didn't want to get standard pyjamas. I didn't want anything with buttons. I didn't want anything which was a two-piece like, because one of the things that bugs me a little bit about pyjamas is, I find that the, and also with the flappy ears, tracksuit bottoms, is the bottoms of the tracksuit bottoms keep riding up my leg.

I'm continuously trying to pull them down with my toes. And it's just a cause of a little bit of frustration sometimes. Not something that I need to be concerned with during the summer when I've got no tracksuit bottoms on.

So I thought, I don't really want tracks, um, pyjama bottoms. But how can you have pyjama tops and not have the bottoms? Because I can't really walk around without something, you know, you know what I mean? Just, there needs to be something below as well. And then I started thinking about the Christmas Carol, you know, the movie or the book.

And I started thinking about Ebeneezer's Scrooge. Don't know why I'm going somewhere with this. And the bed, the bed stuff that he wears, that big long linen or cotton thing that goes down to his knees.

Everything else is loose as it were. So I wouldn't need to wear anything else. And I thought, hmm, I wonder, I wonder, I wonder, I wonder.

So I went on to, what's it called? Amazon. And I ordered myself extra large one. Bearing in mind that it's, it's the only thing I'm going to be wearing.

So extra large should be fine. If it's too tight, then I'll just have to, I just wear it during the day maybe. I don't know.

You know what I mean? Like if it's at night, I don't like being constricted. Because I've got, I don't know, I like to be loose. I don't like tight clothes, I've got their advantage.

If, if I looked good in tight clothes, then yeah, I would wear them. But only when I was out. And I wanted to show off my phenomenal body.

I'm talking hypothetically, obviously. I wouldn't wear tight clothes indoors. You know, if I was to wear tight jeans or tight trousers, just to show off my bum, my amazingly, I don't know, perky bottom, whatever.

It's fine. If I'm going to be walking down the street, wiggling, wiggling it around, walking. What am I talking about? I got to stop, I'm talking rubbish.

But yeah, when I'm indoors, I like to feel loose. I don't don't want anything. You know, when I worked in an office, I didn't wear my work clothes.

When I got home, I got changed into something loose and freeing. Because what those sitting around in the trousers and a shirt and a tie, it wasn't that it was uncomfortable because I always made sure generally that I had comfortable clothes. I was going to be sitting around for eight hours or longer.

Getting home. Well, it's different things for different. You know, it's like not once did one of my housemates shout upstairs, hurry up, Jason, X Factor is about to start.

And I've never shouted down. Oh, wait a minute, I just need to put my tie on. No, that never happened.

My shoes aren't tight enough. I need to pull them so the circulation cuts. No, that never happened.

So having a bit of looseness, a bit of breathing, let my body breathe. So that's what I'm going to be doing. I'll take a funny picture.

So I'll post it maybe ever on one of my podcast images. And what I was thinking is getting one of those hats as well. You know, the hats that they, the Ebeneezer Cruz, Cruz Scrooge would wear.

Although the top I'm getting is not white. It didn't have any white ones, I don't think. But I might.

If, if it works, if it does its job, I mean, if it's comfortable, then what I might do is just get a few more over time. So I've got more than one to choose from. And maybe get one with a little, I don't know, maybe stick a bow tie on one just for special occasions.

I don't know, perhaps a Christmassy one. I'm not saying that I'm going to devote the rest of my life on collecting these sleeping bed, sleeping things. It's not going to be my new hobby.

But I think it makes life for me a little bit more interesting, which is weird, because probably the most boring thing I've ever said, yet it's interesting to me. I'm kind of looking forward to receiving it. I think it's coming tomorrow.

The addressing counts coming on Monday, I think. So my plan is, when it's time to go to bed, I'm going to have a shower. And put it on.

And it feels so comfy. It's going to be rather splendid, I'm sure you agree. We'll see, we'll see, see what happens.

I think a nice pair of slippers would be nice as well because I'm wearing these Crocs. Which are okay, you know, to go outside in if they weren't pink. I don't know why I like pink, but not everybody seems to think it's the most macho colour.

I like pink, I like the colour pink. I've got a pink face. I like things that are pink.

And I like my pink Crocs. In fact, in 2006, I was walking around with a lot of pink clothing on. 2004, 2005, I did not care.

It didn't bother me. It's like, I like, I don't necessarily enjoy really bright pink, but I like pastel, pastel-y colours. Generally, like yellow, blue, green, whatever, pastel.

I like pastel colours. I'm not going to repeat it. I keep repeating myself, don't I? So really, the rest of this week, I'll talk about what happened today in a minute.

This week, so yesterday, I had the door people come around. I think I mentioned that. And they were here for about an hour and a half.

And now the door is, it's tighter. It doesn't, I mean, it still closes, I can lock it, but it's, it's tighter now as well. It's almost like it's had a nice, they've tightened it.

I'm not sure how to explain that. It just feels different. But then if someone spends an hour and a half doing something, you'd expect there to be a difference, wouldn't you? I suppose.

I've been watching Big Brother every night on ITV2, ITV2 at nine o'clock. So from Sunday to Friday, and Friday is the eviction night. And then Saturday, they don't, they don't show anything.

Well, it's not on, I mean. So I'm thinking, it's been alright. It's kind of weird.

The way the people, and I've noticed this just in the last couple of years, and Big Brother, and bearing in mind, I'm not really around many people, generally, generally, nearly everybody in the house is super sensitive. Apart from the older people. And when I say super sensitive, I guess I mean, not just being offended at things, but also being very careful what they say as well.

Which is kind of a little bit different to how things used to be in my memory. Used to get super sensitive people that would get offended easily. But they wouldn't.

You know, they'd expect other people to be careful, and to be respectful and all that. But they perhaps wouldn't do it themselves. There'd be no mindfulness from their perspective.

But they'd have that expectation of other people being mindful towards them and their feelings. And it seems as if the tide has changed. And the, I want to say the younger generation, but people in their 20s and 30s, maybe, or 20s, let's say, and this is a big exaggeration, because I've got no idea, but just based on this small group of people, seem more respectful towards each other.

And they're willing to acknowledge when someone's perhaps upset with what they've said or an action they've done without necessarily taking it personally. I don't know. It's weird.

It's not how, it's not how Big Brother used to be. And okay, for me, I don't like drama in real life. And I've experienced a heck of a lot of it.

But I don't like it in real life. I do like it on television. But that's the only place it should be.

Like make-belief. For me, I don't want it. I've had enough.

I don't want any more of it. I've, I've run out of the ability to deal with that stuff. So I do, I watch EastEnders.

And Big Brother used to be filled with drama. There's still a few little bits, but it's not as it used to be. Which in a way, because there used to be times in the past, and I think, how would they allow in that person to be on national television saying the things they're saying? It's just because they have, they seem to have double standards, like they kick someone out for one thing.

But then another person would just get away with anything and everything. Because they're popular. I mean, there was one episode, one season rather series quite a few years ago, and there was this contestant, and she was nasty.

It's quite funny as well. But she was really nasty at times, like quite often. And she won the whole show.

I was like, whoa. So it was, if I look, so I want to check it up now. So okay, I'm not going to say her name, because I don't, it's not fair to, Helen the name was.

So do do do do do. All right, okay. Wow.

Yes, so she won Big Brother 15 in 2014. And then she returned in 2000. I think the next year, maybe as part of like just for two weeks as part of some kind of thing.

It's weird because it was interesting, it was drama, but it was on telly. And as I said, I don't know, really big into drama off telly. And what was the point? And what's this got to do with underwear? I don't know.

There was there was a reason I said this, but now it's gone. I started talking about Helen and I just forgot the whole point of the conversation. What was I thinking about? I'm just going to retrace my steps talking about Big Brother.

Yeah, yeah. The I've got two big brothers. One's two years older than me.

One's four years older than me. And all of our birthdays, and my younger brothers are all within a month of each other. Not in the same year, but every year, if that makes sense.

So when I was, my little brother was born the day before my eighth birthday party, eighth birthday. And then my first older brother was in August, a week, a week later, roughly. And then my other older brother was a month or less than a month after my birthday.

So within a four week period, all four of our birthdays were, were, were, they were, they still are. We're all still here. So yeah.

Oh, I know. Don't have to do Q&A Friday yet, because it's I've only just done it. Tomorrow.

It's not tomorrow. It's only Saturday today. Why do I keep thinking it's Sunday? I don't know.

I'm trying to think what else I've done this week. I did my laundry, ordered some food, groceries. I did the rubbish.

I took Vinnie out multiple times throughout the week. I was supposed to meet a friend today, but I just didn't feel very well yesterday. And kind of lucky because I woke up with a headache today as well.

But then I can't talk about today because it's really weird. So I woke up, felt a bit ugh. Got up, had my breakfast.

And then Vinnie started barking at six o'clock this morning. Like really barking. Did you hear him? He started growling at me.

Don't growl Vin. Vinnie started barking at six this morning. He was really going at it.

Did you hear him growl just then? Don't growl Vinnie. Don't get upset with me. And then at half eight, we went out roughly.

Because I listened to one of my recordings for about an hour and 20 minutes. Yesterday's recording. I listened to about an hour and 20 minutes of it.

I fell asleep. I completely fell asleep. I was listening to it sitting on the couch thing.

And Vinnie was, I don't know if he was sitting next to me or if he was in bed. I can't remember. But yeah, the six o'clock that was like, come on mate.

No one needs that. I mean, there's people around here that work. They don't need to be woken up on a Saturday at six in the morning.

And that's the thing. It's about other people for me. I don't want to disturb other people.

Him barking at six o'clock in the morning doesn't affect me, myself, unless I'm asleep. But other people, and that affects me because I don't, it's not fair on them. But then he's also a dog and he can't help it.

I don't know what it was that triggered him. It might be just been a squirrel in the garden or there's a cat that's got a little bell on its collar. And sometimes he just sits outside looking up at this window shaking his head or shaking her head, shaking their head maybe and giggling.

And he can't get up to the window to look out. So he is, it's a bit frustrating for him. So I think one of the new neighbors takes her cat out on the lead in the garden now.

I don't know a hundred percent. The person had something on the lead. I mean, how weird would it be? I've never spoken to this person yet.

I live downstairs, never spoken to them. Maybe I'll never speak to them because I've not seen them. They've been here for three weeks, four weeks.

I don't know. I've not seen them yet. How weird would it be if one day I look out the window and I see this person with the lead and on the end of the lead, there's a ferret.

How strange would that be? That would just be almost like, wow. And I go down and get all excited and she'd be like, what do you want? I said, I live upstairs. Yeah.

So what? I said, I used to have a ferret. So, but we're ferret lovers. It's weird, isn't it? I had a ferret.

Therefore, I automatically have a kind of a connection with other people that have had ferrets because they are a particular type of, um, yeah, I suppose like having a monkey or having a dog or having a giraffe, you know what I mean? They've just got their own different ways. I mean, they've all got the different ways, but they've also got to have their own sort of similar characteristics to each other.

Like a giraffe.

I mean, they'll all have to like bend over to get through a door, you know, it's just standard stuff. And you never see a giraffe wearing lipstick. They can't reach.

Now their hands don't reach that far. It's just things like that, that are standard. And with ferrets, they've got a lot of things in common.

But also their own personality, of course. I did wonder whether or not it'd be a good idea to get another ferret. Like now, I wasn't ready before, but I feel I'm kind of ready now.

But I don't know if Finny will be ready, because there's those natural instincts inside him to hunt small animals. He was bred, not him personally, but his breed were kind of bred for that. So he's got that in him.

And yeah, and it can be a little bit. He's definitely a hunter. When he's, he gets the scent of something when he's in the park.

He goes, he focuses just on that thing. And he has me walking all around the park looking for it. Okay, what I was going to say.

No, I don't know how I got to here either. So yeah, I've taken Vinnie out this morning. I took him out about half eight.

There was, was there anyone else around? No, there was. There was a couple of people around. And I spoke to someone for a little while.

Another dog walker had had two dogs. But she wasn't sure if they would be friendly to Vinnie. And Vinnie was so good.

He just, you know, sat down with me, looked at the dogs, the dogs were looking at him. And we were talking for about 10 minutes. And then Vinnie decided just to start barking.

Literally after I just said that he's been really good because sometimes he barks at dogs he's not met before. And he starts barking. And we get home.

And I'm tired. Not now, but I was tired. I needed to go back to bed.

So I did I went to bed for an hour. I'm going to get up pretty about 10. Have something to eat.

And my head's still a bit weird. And I end up going back to bed again. Probably about 12 or 11.

About 12 for a while. But this was weird because basically I had my breakfast had something he was laying next to me. I'm watching TV or something.

I don't know what it was. And I get up. And I go out of the door, you know, door.

The living room doors opposite the window. But then if you don't know where the window is, I suppose I should tell you where the window is. The windows opposite the door.

Is if I I can't walk straight to the door because it means I'd have to do some kind of particle separation because I have to walk through the table. So if I walk around the table, and the doors on the left go out there and that's where the door is. Now, all I want to do is go to the toilet.

So I just go open the door, finish trying to get out the door. And I'm thinking, stay here for a second. It's fine.

I'm holding him back a little bit. This with my foot just stopping him from getting out. I close the door.

And I go to the toilet, come back. And he's hiding under the table, with his tail down, like between his legs. And I'm thinking, and I wait when he runs out, as he runs out of the door, when I opened it, he runs straight out.

And he's sort of hiding. He doesn't want to go out the front door. But he's he's standing there like he's done something really naughty.

And his tail's down, because his tail's up most of the time. I'm thinking, what's going on? That's really weird. I come into the living room, and he's hiding under the table.

And I sit down on the settee, and I call him and he won't come to me. Weirdly enough, though, he'll let me go to him and stroke him. Because quite often if he's, he just like go away.

But he wasn't doing that. So I was stroking him. So what's going on, baby? You okay? And he's just looking at me.

So I really didn't know what was going on. I was getting a little bit concerned. So I went into the bedroom, I thought, I'll go in the bedroom with him, close the door, he'll get on the bed, he'll cuddle up.

And hopefully that'll, you know, he'll feel better after having a little cuddle and sleep for an hour or something. Well, he didn't do that either. He waited till I'd kind of, he thought I was asleep.

And then he crawled over my legs and sat near the wall. And he was just sitting there looking, like almost like staring at nothing. So I didn't, you know, I probably had a, I didn't have much.

If I'm not sure if I got any sleep in the end, I just was concerned about him. So I thought, this is weird. He doesn't normally act like this.

Almost like he knew something. We had feelings, but he didn't know why he had the feelings or he knew something that I don't know. And I don't know, really very, very surprised.

Very confused. So I thought, I'll take him out again. This time I'll take him to the pet shop and get him something.

I won't say the word but t-i-t-r-e-e-e-t-s, which is his favourite thing in the world to go to go into the pet shop. So I went to the petrol station first to get a few things I needed. So I walked up there.

Then I'm walking back and there's a man. So we've not got to the pet shop yet. And the traffic's stopped.

So I'm thinking that's good, I can cross over when I come back. But I'll have to, you know, because the, the side that the petrol station is, is the same side that the pet shop is. There's also an Indian restaurant there as well.

And I'm walking up, I think he's been a good boy. He's really been good. And he's, he seems happy again because he's out.

It's almost like he's got to bounce back in his step. He's pulling and he's just being in his normal, his normal self. And I'll just I'll do the Vinnie's story first and I'll tell you what happened in between.

So I'll cut there. I'll fast forward a little bit. And so basically what happened there was this, I'll just tell the whole story.

There was a man telling people that there was a crash further up the road. There was a caravan and a car crash which had blocked both sides of the road. But because the estate, it was, there's no convenient place to have a crash I know.

But as far as blocking the road, there was a way around it. Just go through the estate and you'd end up, the next exit took you the other side of the crash. So there's no reason for anyone to be delayed at all.

But literally, there's no reason. It wasn't. And I know that's not the most important thing.

But it, you know, as far as it goes, it was good. Not good. I don't know what the right word is.

But it was probably the least inconvenient it could have been for other drivers, in a sense of a road being blocked. Because that part of the road was completely blocked. But you just go around the estate and you're back on the other, you're back on the other side of the road.

The same bit of road which leads to a motorway. So it's a very busy road. Hundreds of cars going through there constantly, like it's nonstop.

So he was telling people, if you turn right here, go through the estate, follow it around, and it will lead you out the other side of the accident. And you'll be fine. So I asked him, what's happening? He told me, I said, okay, it happened outside his house.

That's how we knew about it. And because he lives there, he knows what happens in these situations. It's happened before.

And once people get into a traffic jam, it's almost impossible to get out. Because people, they drive so close to each other. So you can't back out, even if you wanted to.

So what he did, off his own back, this is, is start to help to redirect it. Quite a few cars have already gone down there. So there was already a traffic jam.

But because there was no cars coming the other way. And because he'd stopped the traffic, there was enough room for people to back back out, back up and, you know, turn around, which they wouldn't have been if the cars had continued to go. That makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah.

And on the other side, the other side of the crash, people coming this way could just go around the estate and carry on and come off the estate and carry on down the road. So nobody was just a little detour. That's all it was.

So I joined in and started telling people as well, because I thought this isn't fair on him to be doing all this on his own. Then he wasn't enjoying it. Because he wasn't going where he wanted to go.

So I probably told about 20 people. I mean, it's nonstop. Car after car after car after car.

It's just like I was it was the same sentence. I was going to crash further up the road. If you go through the estate, turn right and turn left, follow it around and lead you back on to the to the road just further up past the thing.

And you still be able to get onto the motorway. By now, and that's it really. So I spoke, I spoke to quite a few people.

Then I said to him, and I was there for a little while. I said, I'm gonna go I need to go to the petrol to the to the what's it to the pet shop to get him something because that's what I'm come up here. And I thought about maybe bringing him back and walking back and helping.

But what I did instead is I just came back. And I continue to help that pedestrian to tell the drivers just to turn right and go around the estate. No police turned up to do it or to just put a sign roadblocked.

It was as simple as that. It didn't have to be there. Just put a sign up in the road roadblocked.

Turn right. You know, it would have been just but nothing. They didn't do it.

And so I came back out I got Vinnie's what he wanted. Oh, I remember something else I got him and it should be defrosted now. And then I came back out.

And I continued for another half an hour, maybe longer. Talking to people, so it's just stopping them or just because to start with everybody wants to know what's happening. Later on, like an hour later, no one seemed to be asking, they were just turning right.

But to start with, everybody wanted to know what's going on. And it wasn't on a sat nav. So even taxi drivers didn't know that there was a traffic jam.

Because technically there wasn't a traffic jam. The traffic wasn't blocked, because between us, we stopped it from getting blocked. There's a hero.

And what was weird about this whole situation is it was kind of like a survey of the public population. In a way, or maybe the driving population, whatever you want to look at it is nearly everybody was friendly. But not everybody.

There was one person, they pulled their window down and said to me, what's going on? I said, oh, is there's been a block up the road. So she was in the passenger seat. Whoever was in the driving seat just drove off while I was literally mid sentence.

It's like, really? I had about five, probably 10 cars just drive straight through. Some didn't stop, we were trying to stop them to let them know to not go down there. And I actually spoke to a couple of people told them and they still drove through and then turned around and had to come back.

A couple of them actually waved to me. Like, I think just to apologize or something. But it was just one of those things, you know, but there was a lady also came and got helped out.

She lives opposite the road opposite. And the other bloke went into this state to guide people to go which direction they needed to go. So instead they didn't turn the wrong way.

And she stood in the middle of the road. And what I did when I was mostly was, I would talk to people tell people, I point my thumb up like that way, she would like stand and point. So between the two of us, we managed to get a lot of traffic moving really steadily, as steadily as it would have done normally, really a bit slower, but steady.

And she, at this point, I'm, I said, Look, we got to find out what's going on. We need the police to be doing this, not us. This isn't, you know, this isn't a job for us.

Just as far as how some people can be. And also, what if it takes office, you can't do this for the next six hours. The police need to come and put a sign up or something.

So I said, Well, I'll do I'll walk up. It wasn't a long distance, but 10 minute walk. I'll walk up, speak to the police and see if they can send someone over or drop a sign off or something.

So I walk up there. And there's this caravan. It's basically it's blocking both sides of the road.

It's like sideways, glass on the floor and stuff. And I don't know quite where the I don't know what the damage was. I mean, there's definitely damage to the caravan.

There's one of those big caravans that you drive. Yes, you know, not one that you pull. And it was there was Yeah, so there was two police cars.

One was a roadside police. Another was just like a general police car. The general police person was interviewing someone.

So I kept away from there. The roadside police person was putting signs not putting bollards out, you know, the I don't know if they have them where you live, but they're like, orange bollards, putting them out. And I said, Oh, because that's what made me think that would be a good idea.

And I said to him I'm just up the road. We've been diverting the traffic for half an hour or 40 minutes now. And then if you've noticed there's no cars coming up.

And he didn't seem to be interested. And I said, is there any is any chance you can come and just either divert the traffic, someone, or put a sign up or something, you know, because we don't know how long it's going to be in some people are being rude, which they were. And he said, No, no, it's only gonna it's not gonna be for much longer.

I said, Okay, so I walked back. And in the meantime, as I'm walking back, this black car is speeding past me. Probably really enjoying the fact that there's no one on the road.

I'm thinking, why is he driving so fast? And why is he driving towards the caravan? You know, that's crashed. It's probably doing 20 miles, you know, faster than he should have been doing. So it wasn't like super fast.

And I kind of by the time I get to where the lady is this standing in the middle of the road. She said, Oh, here he comes. I said, Well, I see the black car that was speeding past me.

Now it had turned around and we're coming back. And she told me what happened. Basically, she was trying to get people to turn right.

And this bloke had to go saying, you're not the police. You should be one wearing a high vis vests. You got no right to divert the traffic.

All of those things were correct. I mean, response true. We are not the police.

We weren't prepared for this situation. I didn't go out with a high vis, whatever. I didn't train to be a police officer just in case this happened.

No training. I've had training in diverting traffic, but that was when I was a security guard. So I used to work on the new opera house.

So I used to divert the lorries or back the lorries up to stop the traffic so the concrete lorries could go down the slope. And there'd be a lot of them. It'd be like all day long kind of stopping the traffic.

Kind of get used to it after a while. I felt like a lollipop man. And I, apparently this bloke's having a go and he just just drove through, not through, I mean, she got out of the way, but he just drove down anyway.

It was it was really fuming. And I was thinking, you know what? Part of me was like, OK. Just if it were, I mean, there was a few people that were rude.

Some people just completely ignored me and just drove through completely. And they saw me. Some people stopped and said, I live up there.

So cool, fine. Obviously, it's fine if you live up there, you go up there. But I can't physically stop a car because I'm not a police person and all that stuff.

But it wasn't about being in charge or anything. It's about helping people. Because as soon as they'd gone down there and the more cars there are behind you, the harder it is for the traffic jam to stop being a traffic jam.

And the whole thing lasted for over an hour, which is a long time if you're trying to make a flight or catch a train or get to hospital or an appointment or something like that. An hour can be a difficult, can make a big difference to someone's day, someone's life even. I'm not saying that, you know, what I did was life changing, but you don't know, do you?

There's another hero.

And the bloke who was in the estate who lived out, basically this crash happened outside his house, he got a phone call to tell him that the police had cleared off, they cleared the road and they'd gone. No one told us though. It was his wife that told him.

The police didn't come, didn't even think about coming up the road, just to let us know. What did they think was happening? Why did they think there was no traffic? It's weird, isn't it? I mean, they didn't have to have a diverted traffic, the other side, because everyone could see this big caravan that's blocking the road. But I think they did have like, go that way, divert.

They didn't even think about coming to the other side. And didn't question, well, they didn't question why, because they knew there was people up there doing it. But they didn't come and tell us.

It reminds me of about 2007. My job was to listen to phone calls and compliance and just make sure people were doing the correct job and all that stuff. And my boss, like the big boss, not my boss, well, he was everyone's boss, came up to me and he said, juicy, do us a favour.

I said, what's that? What's that pudding? He said, can you? I've never called anyone pudding in my life. He said, I need you to find phone calls for this person between, it was like, I think there'd been a complaint and I had to find out. And it's kind of find all the phone calls from this person for a period of time.

It was quite a big task. It's a specific phone call. So I was really looking.

So I'm doing this for about three hours. And I find it eventually. Bearing in mind, I've got my own work to do.

But that doesn't supersede the boss, you know, so, and I said, look, pudding. I found the call. He said, oh, don't worry about it.

It's all sorted now. And I told him off. I said, well, why didn't you tell me? And I started telling him off like this.

And I realised, oh, perhaps I shouldn't. And then I remembered, I've given my notice in a month earlier. So I was, well, two weeks ago, so I had two weeks left.

And I realised, I can kind of do what I want, really, can't I? I got in trouble. This is terrible. I got in trouble for spreading rumours.

Now, I wasn't spreading rumours. I wasn't. All I did was, I spoke to the biggest gossip in the company.

And I just said something. And it was like, I don't believe that's true. I don't believe it's true.

And everybody in the company's talking about it. And the big boss calls me into his office. So at this point, I've got about eight days left to work.

And he calls me and he said, you've got to stop doing this. You can't be spreading rumours. I said, I've not spread no rumours.

He said, why are you telling people? I said, I've not told anyone. I'm not telling people. I'm not going around telling people.

He said, but Steve said, yeah. I said that I didn't believe it was happening. Now, what I didn't know, it was about, yeah, I want to say it was about, what I didn't know is the thing that I made up was true.

So the boss was not happy with me because now everybody on the workforce was talking about something that was going to happen. And he was denying it, but actually it was going to happen. And for some reason, he didn't beg me to stay.

He let me do my last eight days and just leave. I was just doing it as a joke, you know, just like, because I wanted to test it. I had a theory that this person was, I didn't know, but I saw him in action as far as like on a, on the table.

How you tell him and start talking about it to someone else. So I thought, I wonder if the sales floor would spread all the way down to admin and to customer service and renewals and the accountancy department and ultimately the management. And it did.

And I found that quite amazing. Just one conversation over the water cooler or the coffee machine and it spread. And it was true.

I didn't know it was true. I just made it up because I knew, because he'd done something. He was, I think he, I don't know what he'd done, but he was, it was just a joke, basically, you know, it's just a silly joke.

Okay. I'll tell you what he did. He gave me for Christmas, a lottery ticket.

And it was one of those like scratch card things. And I won 50 grand. It was one of those basically secret center things, you know, we give people presents.

And then it turned out, obviously, it was a joke. And I found it hard to forgive him for that, to be honest. And that was, that was like, it was a few months earlier, but I thought, it was, it was a bit of a horrible thing to do.

Not nice. But then what I didn't know is someone else also did the same thing and gave it to someone else. Now they give it to the wrong person.

Okay, so they must have all got together and said, whoever you get will give them a scratch card. Now, I'm just sitting doing my work. This is when I was on the sales floor at this point.

Wow, it's like a year or so before, but I kept that grudge going, didn't I? Anyway, he'd the person, I can't remember who gave it to him. But this person, who was on the sales floor, scratched a card, said that he'd won 50 grand. Now, he acted differently to me.

I kind of, a first bit of like, wow, and then that's obviously, it's rubbish. That's what you look around, read the room. He didn't.

He saw 50 grand, he'd won 50 grand. And he started, like he believed it. He really, really believed it.

And he might say, I'm sure he didn't. Trust me. He started telling people what he thought of them.

And he walked up and he said, I'm going to tell whoever the manager was at that time to go and, you know, what they can do with their job. And I'll tell him what I think of them. And he's running up to him and he's like, and I think I saw like three people jump on him.

To not pull him away. Like, like they actually held him down, said, it's a joke. It was a joke.

And he did cry. Actually, he did cry. So it was cruel.

It was a cruel. I suppose one person's fun can be another person's non-fun, can't it, I suppose. I mean, with mine, you know, when I kind of had that little rumour testing idea with that one person, I sort of like told him something.

I don't believe it, but I did say I don't think it's true. So it wasn't like I was saying it is true, although it was true, I didn't realise till later. And that was more of an experiment to see whether or not my, my theory was correct, that he really was, or that like a bit, a little bit of gossip could really spread that quickly.

I wanted to find out if he was trustworthy or not. Just interested, that's all, I was a bit bored. It was my final couple of weeks of work in there.

And generally I've gotten on really well with everyone. So it wasn't like I was, he was, I got on all okay with him. He was really good at sales, this bloke.

This wasn't the one with a scratch card, it's the one that sent, gave me a scratch card. All he did was read the paper, do the crosswords, when a phone call came through, he'd do the quote, do you want it? That's all he'd do. Do you want it? Okay, up to you.

All right, if you don't it's a reference number. Bye. And then he'd take the next call when it came through, one of the top salespeople.

He was friendly, but the least pushy person ever. He had something I'd never seen before. He really looked like he didn't care.

And the person on the other end of the phone could sense that he didn't care about getting the sale that is. And that, I think that was like a positive thing. Well, he doesn't seem to be too bothered.

I think it was almost like maybe the person on the other end of the phone went through that half an hour or 20 minutes of answering questions. And they felt that maybe he can be bothered to put the payment through now. And he was going to try and let someone else do the payment.

And perhaps the customer was thinking, no, I just spent 25 minutes on the phone. You can do the payment. You can put it through and do all the stuff.

Maybe there was some psychology in that that he either was or wasn't aware of. I don't know. It's all made up.

I've got no idea. But he was very good. Really like, yeah.

Do you want to try and say, see, it was asked for the business. Do you want to set that up to get us up? But never pushy. And he said, How would I know? Well, first of all, I sat at his table and I heard him.

He was at the top people's table. And I sat there a couple of times. This was the last one of the last sales jobs I had.

And he was always on the top salesperson's table. Always. He has permanency.

I'd move. I'd move around. I was I was okay.

But I wasn't the top in that place. The they were better than me a lot. Most wouldn't.

I'd say, how many was there? 1234. There's about 10. Maybe eight, eight to 10 people on that table.

And I was on it a few times. But it kind of, I think they realized after a while, keeping all the top sellers on one table is not necessarily very beneficial for the other people. Because what Churchill did, I think that's that was good.

Good idea is they put even new people or perhaps struggling salespeople next to the most successful ones. And it rubbed off. It could some sometimes go the other way, but generally it rubbed off.

And I've noticed that I was, they do that with me. They put me put someone next to me. I don't know this, they'd start with, they start saying the same things to the customers that I was saying to my customers.

Like they'd be corny lines I'd have. I can't think of anything now but maybe something about the weather or something that was a bit mundane. The odd joke and stuff but and he was like copying me like stop copying me.

But it really improved him. It helped him a lot. And then when I was listening to calls, like all the time, I learned so much on how to do all of the different jobs, more so really.

And it was interesting to hear people, how different people did it. But you know, today, what it taught me, it's a bit like Mork calling Orson, you know, from Mork and Mindy. Mork calling Orson, Mork calling Orson.

What I've learned today is I can't give a percentage, but the majority, by far, the majority of people out of hundreds and hundreds of cars, I would say, in that hour, hour and 20 minutes, whatever it was, were friendly. So the cars, the people in the cars were friendly. But who do I remember? The rude ones.

Unless I focus on the friendly ones. And I remember how many people waved to me, how many people said thank you, how many people smiled, how many people were kind, like, oh, you must be knackered by now, saying the same thing every time, things like that. It's a kind of, it's weird, really, when even though I can see, statistically, that the majority of the people that I dealt with today, in that scenario, were friendly.

But without a doubt, friendly. And even those that weren't like overly friendly or friendly, they weren't rude, they were just like, thanks. Perhaps they didn't realize or appreciate what was going on.

And the difference that having us there, diverting the traffic, made to their day. Because regardless of, could you imagine that traffic jam for an hour? How far that would have gone back? How long that would have took for people to get through? If we hadn't kept the traffic going for an hour and 10 minutes or whatever it was. That's a long way.

I mean, that would have blocked the motorway. But it didn't. The motorway was not blocked.

And do you know why I know that? Because it wasn't on the sat nav. A taxi driver came along, he said, it's not showing on the sat nav, there's no, there's no blockages, there's no roadblocks. Because we, the road, although it was blocked, it didn't affect the traffic.

So there was no traffic jams. The motorway was fine, both sides. All I want is some flowers and some chocolates as a reward.

It did feel quite nice. I don't think Vinnie enjoyed it. But, which is kind of why I was talking about to start with.

When I got back, Vinnie was himself again. Back to being exactly how he was before, like normally. So whatever funk he had going on, late morning, whatever it was, I don't know, he, he got over it.

And I don't know what it was. I don't know. He looked to me like he'd gone to the toilet on the carpet by accident.

And he was sort of worried about the result, you know, for me. There'd be no result. I'm not bothered if he has an accident, it's because he couldn't help it.

He wouldn't do it on purpose. It's a loss. He hates, he wouldn't want to do that.

So I'm going to get angry at him for doing that. We're all allowed to have accidents, aren't we Vinnie? Yeah, you're a good boy if you need to, if you need to go. If I don't listen to you and take you when you need to go, then it's kind of on me, isn't it really? But he's now, he's been cuddling up to my ankles for the last hour or however long I've been doing this recording.

He does seem like he's in a much better space. It's not the first time he's gone a bit weird, but it was, it's just, I don't know. I was a little bit concerned, but he's, yeah, he's definitely doing okay now.

So what I'll do, I will edit this in the morning because it's 25 to 11. I'll edit it in the morning, process it, upload it, so it should be available to listen to by about 10 in the morning, roughly, maybe earlier. And then later on in the day tomorrow, I'll do the Sunday's papers.

Sunday's papers, yeah. But in the meantime, I'm gonna go. So 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. Lots of love.

Bye.