(music) (10 hours) Hats Monday’s Boring Objects LMBYTS #1468 Jason Newland 20th October 2025

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and thank you for listening. This is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. And today, on the 20th of October 2025, this is Monday's Boring Objects.

Yeah, Monday's Boring Objects. Yeah. Did you enjoy that? Was it everything you hoped it would be? It's been raining all day, all day, like proper, proper rain.

But luckily, I've managed not to get wet. Which is kind of fortunate for two reasons. Firstly, because Vinnie has a tendency when it rains, to be specifically fussy, like out of character fussy about where he does a poo.

I mean, he's fussy anyway. But when it's raining, when it's a storm, he really needs at least 10 or 20 minutes to choose a spot. So lucky that didn't happen so much today.

Although he did have one, one walk where he did three and a half poos. So he clearly had a lot to get rid of. And it started to rain.

And I was getting frustrated. And then I realised I'm carrying a brolly. I'm literally waving my brolly around, pretending to be Charlie Chaplin.

Hitting trees. Perhaps I shouldn't do stuff like that. But why are you hitting trees with your brolly? That's a bit of a weird thing to do.

Not the weirdest thing I do. It's not even in the top 500. Blimey, wow, stop judging me, judgy person.

So for those that don't know what this is, or what I am, what are you? Well, first of all, I'm not an AI. I am a human voice. I'm being very, very vague, very wide, very open, very diplomatic, very open to the word human, because I don't really necessarily fit all those criteria.

But as far as I'm not AI, and I did a bit of research today, listen to some podcasts, sleeping, boring podcasts. And some of them sound like they're done by AI. Not all of them, obviously, I say obviously, because there are some ones that clearly aren't done by AI.

But there's some that are. And there's kind of no rhythm to the speech. The words overlap in each other.

There's almost like a different version of the same voice, suddenly talking and continuing the sentence. I'll give you an example. It's a bit like, hello, and welcome to jasonnewland.com. Not quite as extreme as that.

But it is. I don't know, there's AI podcasts out there. And it's very easy to do, actually.

But if you're anything like me, it's not what I want. Now, I, I'm probably among the biggest fans of AI. Love it, love AI.

And I can see the benefits are just phenomenal. I kind of focus on the benefits and the positive if I can with AI. And it's phenomenal what what potentially can be achieved in my lifetime.

I mean, it's amazing what's already been achieved. And because I've been using chat GPT, since it kind of released to help me to create images. Now, I'm the one to choose what I want in the image.

But it is getting better and better at creating what it is I'm looking for. I also use chat GPT to so I transcribe the recordings. I don't use chat GPT for that I use what do I use TurboScribe.

So that's $20 or 20 pounds a month. So I use TurboScribe to transcribe the recording. And then I've got TurboScribe connected to chat GPT.

And I'll go through with you quickly. So I'll open up the dashboard. Account settings.

How much does it cost a month to $20 a month. So what I do is I click on transcribe files, it takes me to my laptop or wherever the files are kept and upload it. It transcribes it in about five minutes, maybe a little bit longer, depending on how long the recording is.

And then I click on the pro I could there's different ways of doing it. But what I do, I click on the transcription. Wow, just started talking.

So you know, I could listen to it back and I can edit it and stuff in there, I think. But what I do is I click on chat GPT opens up open TurboScribe with chat GPT. And then I say, Oh, okay.

So it's certain things you can do. So I just put in, I click the provide a detailed summary of my most recent, which is the most recent transcription. And that's what I do.

And I click that. And then I copy that paste it into a podcast. Change what needs to be changed, you know.

And then when I've done that, and I put that into the description of my podcast, the various, you know, six versions, I then go to a project I've got saved, which is the Spreaker tags generator, and I click on that. And then I post that in. And it creates me another description.

Now, this description is always generally a lot shorter. So I don't use the description. But I use this Spreaker, the tags, SEO friendlies tags, so I can put them into the podcast as well.

So I use AI for that. And then I use it for I'll give you an example of today. Please create an image, focus on sounds.

So I did a let me bore your pain away this morning. So it's now 436. The council has been fixing or redoing two of the front doors in the building.

It has been banging and banging all day long. Or, you know, at least all afternoon since about 1030 till about half an hour ago. So I couldn't make any recordings during that time.

But the amazing thing is Vinnie didn't bark at all. Which is weird. He just didn't care about it.

So here's the the the prompt. Please create an image focus on sounds, have me sitting in a chair in my living room. And one is five times bigger because I'm listening.

And I'll put in brackets, it's a cartoon. And the reason I put it's a it's a cartoon, because sometimes they don't like and I don't want to say deformities, but they don't like some of the AI won't put stuff in. If it thinks that the person is making fun of someone, like having big ears or whatever.

So it's a cartoon. Have Vinnie read Jack Russell in the corner playing instruments, like a street performer, one man band. Now, they did it, but they did too.

I only wanted one. I've only got one Vinnie, I've got two Vinnie's. So, you know, I had to and it was to do it was a it was the wrong size.

So what I did is I went back open a new page up and I said, resize to 1400 times 1400. After Oh, yeah, so I basically I said keep all the same except dog removal, remove the dog on the left, which they did. And then I got it resized.

So it's a little bit of a faff in some ways, because I've not quite got a grip of how to set up the some of the stuff. The other projects, I'm doing all right, you know, it's coming together. So I know what I want.

And then what I do is I take the image, I open up in canvas, so what's going on here? So chat GPT costs me 20 pounds a month. Okay, I do have a plan. Wow.

200 pounds a month for access to the best of chat GPT. But I ain't gonna be paying that. No.

So then I've got that image, I open up Canva. And I just I don't know why I'm just interested in how, how much I'm paying for these things, I don't really think about it. Oh, why is that got me down like, um, I'm not even a member, which I am a member.

It's very strange. settings, settings, my profile. I've been a member with them for years, years and years and years.

Canva purchase history, right 13 pound a month, I'll pay for that. And going back to 17th of December 2022. I was using it for a couple of years before that, but I didn't pay for it.

I just used the three, the three one. But then I started doing a lot more stuff, you know, make a 18 1920 2122 2324 2526 2930 3132 3334 3536 36 months. Wow.

36 times by, well, actually, it's not because it was 10 pound 99 when I first started using it. And then it went up to 1299 to no one up to 13 pound. What are you doing Vinnie? I'm watching you.

Anyway, so that's that one. And then what I do in Spreaker, not Spreaker and Canva is I'll make the recording. So let's make a recording.

So let's say because I was doing a let me bore your pain away, I go back to my my last let me bore you pain away. Image that I made, which was relax your back. 10 days ago.

So I copied that. And I renamed it, focus on sounds, you know, the name of the thing today. And then I opened it up, open a new tab.

He's found a little cake bottom, a tin foil thing. And then I just posted it up, I filled it in instead of the other image. And that's pretty much done then.

Rearrange the website address. Because depending upon the size of the image and where things are will, you know, dictate to me where the website address goes. Now the jasonnewland.com. And then there's a little banner for the let me bore your pain away.

Which is it always in there as well. And I like that. I like that banner that that image as well.

So yeah, and then what I do is I upload that to the different podcasts or, you know, different versions. So there's a fair bit involved in the whole process. Even though I'm I mean, if I had to write a description, like some long description about the recording I'd just done, I wouldn't do it.

I just wouldn't. It just Yeah, I wouldn't want to spend that time doing stuff like that. So it's very, very useful to get that.

Wow. So I just saw on Facebook, I got to stop looking at Facebook. So yeah, it's I use AI for that.

But do not use AI to produce my recordings. I don't write a script for my, you know, when I do a Let Me Bore You To Sleep. There's no script here.

It was kind of obvious, I think. But I also don't use it. You know, I've got got a cloned voice.

This is just my voice. I do use it when I'm looking something up. So, for example, I say last week, did I do one for Monday's boring objects? 80s UK TV shows.

Top 80s UK TV shows. Now that was for Trivia Tuesday, wasn't it? That wasn't for Monday. So Monday.

I don't know. So I decided before I did this, I was going to talk about hats. I can't help you then staring at me.

It's not gonna. I'm sure he's trying to control me with his mind. I stand up, go into the kitchen, reach out and pull the bag of treats.

Pull one of those chicken sticks out and hand it to me. Nice and quickly. No, Vinnie.

Considering how much you let go onto the grass earlier. I don't think you need anything going into your mouth. We've had enough for now.

You're turning into a greedy little goblin. Yes, you are. So I would for I would do today after that extended introduction.

Oh, yeah. So I'm going to talk about hats, hats that I've had. But before I do that, I just I was listening.

I went through Apple podcasts, searching for podcasts that kind of do what I do. And there's quite a few that haven't uploaded anything new since 2018 or 2021. 2019, you know, so maybe they did a few and then they stopped.

But then some people might think that about my podcasts, the ones that Apple had, that weren't uploading since September. Now, they have all been archived. So although the link comes up, when you search for my name, the link is there.

But when you click on the link, nothing comes up on the page at all. So it's at least I mean, I didn't know whether it was worth just putting the ones on that at least had until September on them. But that's just even more confusing, I imagine.

If listeners think that I'm not, not made any new recordings for over a month, when that is why I do say, you know, what I say, but I give you my web address. Because every time I release a new recording, it's on my website, or join my Jason Newlands Boring Group on Facebook, because every time I do a new recording, I post it on there. So if you that's one way for you to know whether or not I've uploaded anything recently.

Because I would say probably on a normal kind of week, I upload one nearly every day. There's sometimes a few days, sometimes there's, there's a period when I don't, but it's because something's going on, or maybe I was a bit unwell. But generally, I mean, how many have I done this week? What about the Blimmin Hats, JJ? All right, well, calm down.

What's the day today? It's the 20th. So if we go from Tuesday to Monday, Tuesday the 14th to today, 14th of October, can you can you believe it's the 20th of October already? Wow. It's it's crazy, isn't it really? How quickly time goes? I'm almost I'm still surprised.

This is weird. Okay, it's not weird. Tuesday, Trivia Tuesday.

I did do a Monday's Born Objects, and it's my favourite comedy characters. Fair enough. EB Gone Wild, eBay Gone Wild was Trivia Tuesday last week.

So I did Trivia Tuesday, there's one. Whisper Wednesday, two. I bought some veg, three.

Q&A Friday, four. Traffic Jam Preventer, five. Nine Pillows, six.

Focus on Sounds, seven. And this one, eight. So I've done one every single day of the week, plus two today, because I did the Let Me Bore Your Pain Away, number 40.

Can you believe I've done 40 of those? I would argue, not very strongly, but I would argue, I wouldn't argue, but I would say that I've listened to them myself. I think they're quite good. I don't mean that in a kind of, oh, I'm so wonderful.

Look at me on my broomstick. I don't know why I've got a broomstick or if that accent but I just, I quite like them. Because there's still a Let Me Bore You, you know, vibe.

But there is a focus. And I don't know, I just, I like it. I like them.

I like doing them. I've had a couple of people say they like them. So it would be nice to know if anyone listens to the Let Me Bore Your Pain Away when I do them.

Yeah, they're not necessarily as long as the Let Me Bore You To Sleep, but hmm, I like them. So even if I am the only one who listens to them, I still like them a lot. So hats.

Where do we start? Well, I had a hat when I was a kid. When I was a baby, all babies have hats. I've actually got a picture, a photograph of me on the wall here.

I'm pointing. I don't know why I'm pointing because, you know, you can't see me but it's a picture of me as a baby in an all kind of baby costume, which I would, I reckon it was knitted by my nan. It looks like it's choking me.

She, she used to knit us, my nan, she used to knit us, what do they call them? Neck, duffle necks, high necks. Oh, what are they called? Anyone? High neck pullovers, high neck pullovers. They used to have a name, high neck pullovers.

No, that's not it. But they were proper high neck pullovers. Maybe that is the right neck.

Maybe that's the right name. Maybe I don't. High neck, high neck, high neck.

I think there was a dick, a dick. So I think there was a different name. But all I remember is we'd open up on Christmas Day.

My nan and granddad would come around for dinner and a Christmas dinner. We'd be around in the morning. Because we were the only grandkids that they would generally see at Christmas, on Christmas Day anyway.

And sometimes, because we lived in the same town, that was the only reason. But, you know, her other grandkids would come over and her kids would come and see them. Maybe like in the afternoon or Boxing Day or whatever.

So they'd come over, we'd open all our presents from under the tree. I would take my presents to one chair and we'd all kind of have a little place where we'd open our presents. And I would always sort of say, thanks, I just make up a name.

I never looked at the labels and so thanks, Dorothy. Thanks, Pete. Thanks, Steve.

And because I just thought, I can't bother to look at the labels, but I'll just, I'll open up the present and just get to the next present. I got caught out. Which was weird, because I didn't think anyone was watching me.

Or listening, to be fair, because there was a lot of noise. And I remember my dad saying, you do realise we were watching you? I said, why? He said, that's what parents do. They watch their kids open the presents.

I said, that's weird. He said, there's nothing weird about it. We're taking photographs.

It's a nice thing to do. It's a family thing. I said, okay, okay.

What's going on about family? Fair enough. And he said, we saw what you did. I said, what do you mean? He said, you were shouting out thank you to the wrong people.

I said, how do you know I was shouting out to the wrong people? You can't see the labels from where you are. You're the other side of the room. He said, because no one called Steve Peter in this family.

You were shouting out the wrong names, but you were shouting out names that didn't even exist. I said, I've got friends that have those names. In fact, I think you'll find them in the Bible.

They used to wind him up when I talked back, especially when I was logical. He said, next time, just use the names of the people in the family. If you're going to say thank you.

Poloneck. Poloneck, I think it was the name of the jumpers. So my nan would all have one of these at Christmas.

I'm not saying every year, but too often. Yeah, too often. And because we're all kind of getting bigger with age and, you know, and we, and she'd make one for all of us, all three of us.

And we could not get it over our head without really, really struggling. It was, it wasn't, it was tight on the body, but it wasn't that tight on the body, but the neck was ridiculous. And we had to wear it at dinner.

We wouldn't wear it, but we had to put it on. I was like, your nan's coming, put your pullovers on, your polonecks on. It's really hard to eat at Christmas dinner when you can't breathe.

It was like, I just have to try and pull it out. And then start eating again. That was really uncomfortable.

And what did we do? Thanks for the pullover, Nan. It's brilliant. Nanny Newland.

And they were lovely. It's just the necks were too tight. That's what it was.

They were lovely jumpers. And it looked even nicer than it was in the garden underneath all the dirt. I don't know how I got there.

She loved knitting, my Nan. She did, she used to knit. She used to, all the time.

She used to, she didn't even know she was knitted. She'd be watching TV and she'd just be knitting, just didn't even have to look at her hands. Which explains why she came up with such atrocities.

Why atrocities? Why, I mean, look at the instructions once in a while, you know, maybe then you get the measurements correct. Now I'm not having a go. I'm not being rude.

But it was, I mean, she used to give me gloves. And I swear, either they were too tight. So I couldn't actually bend my fingers.

Or they were so big that they were literally just falling off constantly. I had to wrap sellotape around my wrists to keep them on. It was one or the other.

Hats, that's it, that's what I was talking about. She used to make us hats. And again, it was, it was really, it was, it was a gamble.

She'd make a hat. It really was anyone's guess. It wasn't a case of this is for you, this is for you, this is like, just stick them in a box and just try them on, see which one fits.

See if any of them fit. Why are you moaning, Vinnie? What are you moaning for? Why did you do that? What did you do that for? What did you do that for? He probably wants to go and lay down on the bed. But I can't let you lay on the bed because I know that soon as someone opens one of their front doors, you'll start barking, won't you?

Even though we've had a council worker for about five hours, banging doors and doing building work in the building, and he hasn't barked once.

But guarantee, honestly, if a slug in the garden farts, he'll start barking. Won't you? Don't look at me like that. It's not my fault.

If he had his way, he'd probably spend all day on the bed. Apart from when we went out, he'd just sleep all day and all night. Apart from when he's eating when he's walking around.

I think I managed to say walking around without him hearing the word w a l k. Don't worry if any. I managed to get someone to pick up my prescription for me. Wonderful.

Really is. So. What was I going to say? Oh, yeah.

So she used to buy his hats. So I've worn a few hats over the years. There's a couple of really memorable ones.

One was when I was in the Sea Cadets. And it was like one of those flat white caps. I don't know if you've ever seen a Sea Cadet cap.

And that was me. Well, I wasn't a cap. That was my hat.

Technically, it was a cap. I think there was two. Was it two? In civvies, which wasn't civvies.

Or because you had two uniforms. One was more like an army uniform. And one was really like dress up.

And the trousers were like um, not tangerines. What's those things that push together? Not bangos, bongos, jamboreens. Jamboreens? I don't know.

Do you know like the springs like those things? They're a bit like that. They had to be ironed in a certain way. And with like a navy blue top and all this stuff that was on it.

But I think when we do another stuff, we'd be dressed down. I don't know if we wore beret then. Or did we still? No, I think we continued to wear the same hat, or the same helmet or cap.

I used to quite like the smell of it. And the white on the top, we had to clean it and put a certain thing on top of it to keep it white. It was like Tippex, kind of.

It wasn't actually Tippex. I was told when I first did it. Yeah, I quite like that hat.

It was too big. Because I was tiny. Because I was 11.

When I joined the Sea Cadets, I was 11. And I, yeah, I was pretty tiny. And I think the hat was a bit too big on me.

But I grew into it. I think I might have had to have some kind of safety pin to keep it on. Or maybe something inside the hat just to keep it on me.

But yeah, it used to blow away sometimes. But then my, the leader of the of the troop, gave me like a way to prevent that happening. He said, don't wear it at school.

Okay, fair enough. So that was probably the first time I had any kind of symbolic hat. I don't think I ever wore a hat at school, like a school uniform hat.

I had a school uniform, but not a school uniform hat. You know, you sometimes get these kids that, I guess I'm just going to say that have a school uniform hat. I'm just going to say again, really.

But I never, I don't think I ever had one of those. But I did used to have hats. Because when I was a kid, just thinking when I was little, because you know, we have we have seasons in this country.

And I'm saying that because some countries don't have like four seasons. Or some people that don't countries don't have really cold winters, some have much colder than we have here. So a hat is pretty much a necessity, when it's cold.

But there were times when I would I'd have a parka. And parkas were really popular. But when I was about 10, 11, I had these big massive hats or like hoods with big furry bits at the top of the front.

And I couldn't see where I was going. Because as always, everything I wore was too big for me. Or too small for me.

Because I was just too little. So when I did grow, it, it wasn't noticeable. Here's a bit of weird information about me.

I have mentioned it before, but so a while back, I used to walk and this was in junior school, I used to walk around with my feet, my toes curled inwards. That's how I used to walk. And I trained myself to slowly straighten my toes up when I walked along.

I don't know why I was doing it. But I had to honestly I trained myself and it felt so weird to not do it. Now I'm not saying I did it all the time, but I did it when I was walking home from school.

How strange I just bit of a strange thing. But yeah, I kind of noticed it. I thought, Oh, this is weird.

Why am I doing that? So I gradually I try and walk for a little bit with my toes like as straight as possible. And try and relax my toes. And eventually it just became like normal.

Like, you know, I didn't really notice it anymore. And I was just walking with my toes in a normal position, I suppose. A regular, a regular walking stance.

I don't know what that's got to do with hats though. Probably nothing. Oh, there was this hat I got.

See, my brother was four years older than me. So when I was 16, or 15, probably 15. He was 16, 17, he was 19.

And he wore a trilby hat. And he had long hair. I wanted to be like him.

I didn't want to have long hair like him because I wanted to get a but I didn't think anyone would want to go out on me if I had long hair. As it turned out, once I reached 20, I did grow my hair long for four years. So I had long, really long hair.

Oh, yeah. Oh, it reminds me well, I'm skipping forward a bit here. But when I was 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 1991.

So I started wearing a hat. This is before my hair was long, but my hair was out of just curly. And that's when I decided to grow it long.

And so it was out of you know, it's just it was just it was I couldn't put it into a ponytail yet. So I had to really grow it. It was out of control.

So what I did is I bought a hat. It's a leather hat, like a cap. The was quite big because of all the hair I had.

And I had a big massive curly hair. And I wore that when I went on stage. Not just when I wore it when I went out.

And I quite liked it. And I had these gloves, these like fingerless leather gloves as well, which matched the hat. Except that the hat weren't fingerless.

Don't know if I had a leather jacket. But I was, you know, I was working at that time. So I had, this was like, yeah, I was working in the bakery in the canteen.

So I had money coming in. I forgot all about that until just now. So back to the trilby.

I had a trilby. I bought myself a trilby from this shop. And they sold trilbies.

I guess that's obvious, isn't it? I don't think it's all it's sold, but it definitely sold trilbies, trilby hats. And I wanted to be like my brother. So I bought it.

And I walked around with it. And it blew away. I remember running down the high street trying to catch it.

Because we lived near the sea, you see, you see, near the sea. So when it was windy, it was gale force at times. Because it was well, it was coming straight from the sea.

It was honestly, and my hat just went flying. And it was still ground level. But I couldn't catch it.

And back in those days, I was pretty nimble, I could run. Well, I was able to run a bit. I didn't win any medals, but I never had the, well it's one of the school, there's no trilby hat catching contests.

Besides, I couldn't catch it. So I probably wouldn't have won. Or did I catch it and I trod on it and broke it? I've kind of got mixed memories about this one.

Either I couldn't catch it. Or I did catch it, but I put my foot on it to stop it. And it just basically squashed it.

And it was never the same again. Or my older brother told me to stop copying him. That could have happened.

Something happened, but it definitely, I remember it kept falling off. And it didn't suit anything I was wearing. Because I was just like wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

Or a jacket or you know, whatever. I wasn't wearing any kind of like a suit. But neither was my brother.

Hmm, trying to think of other hats. So when I was working in the bakery, I didn't like this. I had to wear a hat inside the bakery.

And on the hat it's got like a net, because I had long hair. Well I was growing my hair long. So I had to have a hat with a net on it to cover up my hair.

No, I didn't like that. No, whatever. I had another job, but this was in a cold place.

I had to wear a hat. The same kind of thing with like a net as well and wellington boots. Ridiculous.

When I first started working here, you had to wear your own clothes. And then they kind of introduced all these new rules, you know, white jackets, willies. Just it got silly.

Well, it was hygienic, but just, you know, wearing someone else's wellington boots. I'm not a big fan of that. I don't know, just I'm not really a wellington boot wearing kind of guy.

Maybe it's because I had to wear them when I was a kid. And then when I was working, which has put me off wearing them now. Yeah, I can pretty much say that in the last 30 odd years, not once have I fantasized about wearing wellington boots.

I'm not saying that I used to fantasize about wearing wellington boots. Honest. I've got a neighbor in the garden shouting.

Listen, just trying to think of some other hat. When I was in the bakery, in the actual the bakery itself, because I went from working in the canteen to working inside the actual the hot part where they were baking the cakes, well, the bread. So I had a hat there as well.

Which just made it even hotter. Just like 100 degrees plus the whole time. And sometimes I do like 16 hours.

One week I did 100 hours, and I took home £250 after tax, which in 1991 was quite a good wage, I suppose. But 100 hours, yeah, it's not, I mean, I don't know. But then when I had another job, in 92, I was getting paid about just under £2 an hour.

I think. Yeah, I think I was in about £100, just over £100 a week for 40 hours. I suppose it's really, that wasn't that great of money, was it? In a way, if you think £250 for 100 hours, I mean, that's, well, it's £2.50 an hour, isn't it, to take home.

So it's still only, what, £3 an hour. Which I don't think was a particularly amazing wage. I mean, £3 an hour times by 10, 30, 60, 90, 120, 120, 5, 120, 1, 2, 3, 4. Yeah, it's not a huge amount.

I think what it was, I don't think I'd ever had £250 in cash before, so it felt quite nice, because those are the days when you get paid in cash. Not everyone paid in cash, but they did. And in a little brown envelope, with a little payslip.

Whoa, it was nice. Thing is, though, I think I was getting paid more than that. I mean, I was, I had a job, before going to London, in 1990, I had a canvassing job, four hours a day, knocking on people's doors for double glazing.

And I do believe I was earning £120 a week for that, for 20 hours. So that was a lot, I was a lot better, wasn't it? So 40 hours would have given me £240. And the £120 was without bonuses.

So if I got any leads, which I had to get leads to keep the job, so it would always be like £150, £160, £170, £200, you know, depending on what leads I got. And I also had a full-time job on top of that at the time. I didn't realise, I didn't realise how good I had it.

Hmm, it was a little bit too much though. Turtleneck, oh no, turtleneck. Turtleneck? Polo neck, turtleneck.

What's the difference between a polo neck and a turtleneck? Or is it the same thing? I don't know. I can't wear them now. Even now, even, I mean, I'm, you know, a little bit older than I was then.

I can't wear stuff on my neck. Even when I was working in an office and, you know, I had to wear a shirt with a tie, the shirt was still loose on my neck. And once the tie was on, I generally would undo the top button.

Because I don't like that constriction. Just, you know, I like to be free. Also free.

Ooh, what other hats, what other hats have I had? There was a hat I liked. I don't know when it was. It might have been as an adult or as a kid.

I think it was when I was a kid and I was working, when I was doing my paper round. And it was one of those ones that I think it was green. I don't know why, but it was a green hat with like a cap thing in front.

But inside it was furry and it had ear flaps. So you pull them down. And it kept my ears warm.

It kept my head warm as well. It kept the rain off of my face because of the cap bit. I wasn't really a big fan of the under the chin strap, because that reminded me too much of the old sea cadet hat, which would have to use a strap sometimes if it was windy.

I have to put, like use a strap on. Because I don't think it was always attached. I think it was like hidden underneath.

Because if you ever look inside a cap, a sea cadet cap, there's like a pocket, I think on both sides of the actual inside. And I think it used to, yeah, I'm pretty certain that you used to have to attach, you used to have to strap on the like the chin string, whatever it was. So you'd have a strap on and finish on the chin.

It'd be like, you have to attach from one ear to the next, to the other ear, if you know what I mean. So I mean, I imagine if it's like windy day and we're going for a march in the street or at some kind of celebration, we'd be prepared anyway. So was it a string or was it like a ribbon? I don't know.

Maybe it wasn't a strap on, maybe it was maybe it was always attached, but hidden like in the pocket of the cap. I just, I don't know why I've got the idea of a strap on. I'm pretty sure it's a strap on.

In fact, I've even got a memory of, it's like buttons that, you know, the buttons that click together, not, not like click, those kind of metal buttons that had something like that, that would attach to the sides of the hat. And that it would be inside the hand, you could put it down and so it'd be, yeah, be a strap on to that. I don't know.

It's a long time ago. What other hats have I had? I'm just trying to think if I've ever had a hat where I worked. Now I used to be a security guard.

Did I ever get a cap with a security guard job? I might have done. I don't think I did, but I might have done. I definitely got a uniform.

Wow. I wonder if I had a hat, security guard hat. I don't think I did, but it's possible.

So I still trying to think of other hats I might have had through the years. If I go back from now, last year, I had a woolen hat. The thing is, because I shaved my head, probably at least twice a year, maybe three times.

A hat is almost compulsory. It's needed. I mean, it's very much needed.

There's been a long time since I wore a hat. I suppose February, March, February time, probably. Maybe March.

I don't even know where my hat is. No, I can't remember. Oh, I remember the hats I wore in the bakery, like behind the counter, serving food were very much like service hats.

They're like little, they looked a little bit like little paper boats sitting on my head, if that makes sense. Yeah, they weren't like an ordinary hat. I think I had to wear a hat at the chip shop as well.

Yeah, I think I had to start wearing a hat there in the second year. Oh, I forgot about that. I did, I did, I did.

Did I have to wear a hat in the meter factory? So I know that we had to wear antistatic clothing. We had to plug ourself into like a thing, antistatic thing. I don't remember.

That antistatic thing, that was also a strap on. So we'd have it attached I think all the tables had this rubber thing, which you had to plug into this thing, which then plugged into or attached to your clothing. Something like that, or some kind of strap or belt or something like that.

Or maybe wrist. No, that'd be restricted, wouldn't it? Maybe we had to wear a wristband. Maybe that's what kept us antistatic.

Stopped us floating off. Trying to think of any other jobs where I wore a hat. There's probably an obvious one that I've not remembered.

But I can't think of anything. I nearly joined the army when I was 16. But I didn't in the end, but I would have been wearing an army cap.

I got through the whole thing apart from, well basically I got through the test, the written test, the medical, the physical. All I had to do, and the interview of course, all I had to do was attend the weekend course, the weekend training and pass that. And then I would be sent to the army.

I would be sent to my, is it six week training or 12 week training? I don't know. But I chickened out. I kind of wish I hadn't, but at the same time I don't know whether or not I had the right mentality, maybe the right composure or the just, I don't know if it would be right for me back then.

There's no way of knowing is there, but it's, you can't know what you don't know, what hasn't happened. I wonder if this would have happened 40 years ago. It's like, blimey.

In 2020, I bought myself, it was, I mean, it was and it wasn't a balaclava because face coverings were the thing at the time. And I thought, okay, well, I'll get myself a balaclava. And I remember going out and it was so hot that I had to take it off.

Yeah, it was just too hot. And I wasn't used to having a face covering on. So it's weird.

You might, you might not know this. In the UK, especially in cities and stuff, balaclavas have become kind of really popular. And it's just one of those things, I can't really get my head around, my head around, because balaclavas, when I was a kid growing up and even during my adult years, balaclavas, balaclavas stood for a few different things.

None of them positive. None of them good. It was very negative kind of connotations to wear a balaclava.

So it's, it's kind of strange, really, I don't know. I wouldn't wear one myself because it's just not my thing. Not really.

I'd feel strange walking around like that. Because like, I don't just, it just seems weird, like a weird thing to do or weird thing to want to do. But then I'm not, I'm not fashionable.

So if it's a fashionable thing, then that's why I don't do it. I don't think I've had any other hats other than just the normal winter hats, wooly hats or whatever. I did have a thermal hat, which was quite nice, actually did do the job.

I suppose the only other thing close to having a hat was when I had my bicycle helmet. So that was kind of like having a hat. Well, it was a hat, isn't it? It's a helmet.

But I didn't find that particularly comfortable. But it's definitely necessary. I'm trying to think.

No, I can't think of any other exciting hat stories. No, I can't, I don't think. It's got to be another hat there somewhere, surely.

Surely there has to be. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, it's got to be. But I don't think there is.

I think I've actually shared all my hat stories with you. And I thought there'd be more. I really believed I had more to give.

But it doesn't appear so. In fact, I feel like I've disappointed myself. No, that was it.

No more hats. Just double checking. Oh, no, I did wear a hat.

When I left Churchill, I had this job cleaning early hours, really early. And I'd get out of bed. And I just go straight there.

Because it started, it was like half five start. And I wore a hat. Because my hair was so messy.

Yeah. And at that time, it was in 94, 93, 90, 2004. Sorry.

I got a hat which said, let me pull was it helpwithpain.co.uk. And I had a t shirt with the same thing. So I also had an advert on a hat with my website address. Yeah.

Forgot about that. I went on retreat. I think it was 95.

Maybe 94. I think it was 95. 2005.

Sorry. And I'm pretty sure I had a hat on the whole time because it was cold. But it was comfy wearing this hat.

It was a big hat. And I liked it. I've also had quite a few hoodies over the years.

I'm not really into hoodies, walking around with a hoodie, whatever, but I have done. I'm kind of wanting to buy myself, well, not buy myself, but I'd quite like to have a nice hat. I haven't had a nice hat for a long, long time.

It'd be lovely. Especially with, you know, winter on its way. A nice hat.

Oh, yeah. I have to look online and see if there's anything I can get. Maybe get one of those with a little flappy down thing for my ears.

Yeah, something that's already got attached. I don't want to get another strap on. Had enough of those strap ons in the past.

Plus, it's weird because if you phone going to a shop and ask if they've got any strap ons, it gives you a weird look. Like, why is that a strange thing to ask? Because sometimes, you know, the hat doesn't, we haven't all got the same size head. And if it's windy and the wind catches the hat, it can just blow off.

So much wind, the hat blows off, which means you need a strap on. Keep it on. Or one that's already on.

Like a clip, those clips, I like those clips, that you just click together. I can be a bit fidgety with those. I've got them on my jacket.

They're on the sleeve. I don't know why. But I just undo them and push them together again.

Then undo them and push them together again. Then undo them and push them together. It's just, I don't know why, it just gives me a degree of pleasure by doing it.

It's weird, isn't it really? So this pretty much is, that's all the hats I can think of. I'm not even sure if I've, how many, I was just checking, I wasn't sure if I'd even done an hour, but I have done about an hour and 20 minutes. So I'm going to go.

Tomorrow is Trivia Tuesday. Thank you for listening and 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.