Oh Dear, Oh Dear. I shall be Late!
Well, that’s the fastest I’ve ever managed to turn out a podcast. Phewwwwwww!
Links referenced in this episode:
Keywords:
podcast episode, parenting tips, Dungeons and Dragons with kids, school holidays, family activities, busy parent life, podcasting tips, role-playing games for families, balancing work and family, funny parenting stories, family bonding activities, kids and creativity, managing a podcast, school leavers party, children's emotional development, storytelling in gaming, teaching kids teamwork, family game night, children's school transition, humorous parenting anecdotes
Transcript
Okay, okay, okay, I know, I know I'm late.
Speaker A:It's been two weeks and one day since my last confession.
Speaker A:Show, Show.
Speaker A:I mean show.
Speaker A:I will explain, but first, you know it's the theme tune.
Speaker A:Sit back, relax, unless you're driving.
Speaker A:It's time for that's a Freebie.
Speaker A:It has been an extremely busy week.
Speaker A:I, I almost wasn't able to record this episode.
Speaker A:I, I, I'd almost given up trying to find time.
Speaker A:It is currently 6am on Friday morning, the day after the episode was due to be released.
Speaker A:I'd all but given up and thought, you know what, I'll just push it to next week.
Speaker A:But no, I am so dedicated to you, the fans of that's a Freebie that I got up extra early and decided to make a recording.
Speaker A:Will that be a mistake?
Speaker A:Find out in about two weeks time when I say, oh my God, that was a mistake.
Speaker A:I was so tired that Friday.
Speaker A:Now I'm sure I'll be fine.
Speaker A:I'm usually up at this time on a Friday anyway because I usually have the children to get ready for school.
Speaker A:I nearly said work then, and then I have to go to work myself.
Speaker A:But no, this week it has been the start of the school holidays.
Speaker A:Hence the reason why I am late.
Speaker A:I'll be honest, my recording days this week were either Monday or Wednesday.
Speaker A:And instead of recording, I played Dungeons and Dragons with the kids all day instead.
Speaker A:It was totally worth it.
Speaker A:The girl finally decided that she wanted to join us again and she loved every minute of it.
Speaker A:It was great.
Speaker A:We meet.
Speaker A:Me and the boy have been playing for a while now, as I've told you many times before.
Speaker A:And she started in the last few sessions that we've done, she started hanging around a little bit more and wanted to see what the things that I was doing is running the game and things like that.
Speaker A:And you could tell she was, she was itching to play.
Speaker A:But every time we said, do you want to join us?
Speaker A:She'd go, oh no, it's all right.
Speaker A:And she disappeared back upstairs.
Speaker A:But this time we said, do you want to join us?
Speaker A:And she said, no, no, no, it's all right.
Speaker A:And she was about to disappear upstairs and I said, how about you join us on the next one then?
Speaker A:Because we could really do with your character coming back because we haven't got a rogue in this group.
Speaker A:And she was like, oh well, if you really need me then I'll come and join in.
Speaker A:She plays a rogue called Luna.
Speaker A:And at the start of the next session she said, how long do I have to play for?
Speaker A:So I said, well, let's say an hour.
Speaker A:And what we will do, we will see how you feel after that.
Speaker A:If you don't feel like playing anymore after an hour, well, I'll just take over your character for a little bit and then you can come and join back later if you want to.
Speaker A:Yeah, all right, we'll do that.
Speaker A:And she stayed the whole, whole like day.
Speaker A:We must have played for about six hours that day.
Speaker A:And it was so much better than normal.
Speaker A:Yes, they argued a little bit, but having one another to bounce off with ideas was so much better than, than it is just having the boy on his own all the time now.
Speaker A:Not that the boy does particularly bad, he's just, he's a bit young, he's not used to the role playing side of it.
Speaker A:So yeah, he did really, really well.
Speaker A:She did really, really well.
Speaker A:I think they just really helped each other, which is great.
Speaker A:Like I said, it is now the school holidays, so that probably does mean.
Speaker A:Oh, by school holidays as well, just, you know, in case you're listening to this at some random time in five years or summer, I mean, they're like the full summer holidays and it's the full summer holidays after my daughter has left school as well.
Speaker A:So big holiday, you know, big, big, big time of the year, big time of life, I suppose.
Speaker A:So that does mean, as usual over the summer holidays, the recording schedule could get a little bit erratic, you know, like today or yesterday.
Speaker A:I suppose there may even be weeks where there isn't an episode.
Speaker A:I will let you know more about that in just a moment, but first let's touch on what I just said there.
Speaker A:It was my daughter's last day at primary school.
Speaker A:She has left primary school.
Speaker A:How much of a mind bender is that?
Speaker A:That's insane.
Speaker A:Like I remember being born still and like she was this tiny little thing and now she's this.
Speaker A:I was going to say big little thing, but that's not the right thing.
Speaker A:But she is a big little thing.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's really scary.
Speaker A:She's done well.
Speaker A:She's done really, really well.
Speaker A:We're still, you know, we still have the, the saga of her school, but it looks like that's pretty much calming down.
Speaker A:I think it's safe to say she's going to end up at the mainstream school, which I think will be better for her in the future.
Speaker A:We'll see.
Speaker A:You know, we don't know anything yet for certain, but yet she had the end of school party, which was great.
Speaker A:We've Been very lucky that her class has been blessed with a load of really great people.
Speaker A:And I know every class probably says this and I genuinely believe that it's a.
Speaker A:It's true to just seen them all interact with one of each, with.
Speaker A:With one and each other.
Speaker A:Seeing them all interact with each other at the leavers party or leavers disco, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker A:That's what they called it.
Speaker A:You could tell that they were really supportive of one another.
Speaker A:And yes, they've all had their issues over the years, like, you know, everybody does.
Speaker A:They have the little arguments, things like that, but they've in general been really supportive.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:They had photos of them displayed on a projector throughout the whole thing.
Speaker A:And every time one of them would appear on screen, they'd all cheer.
Speaker A:Regardless of who it was, everybody would cheer.
Speaker A:It was great.
Speaker A:And then they'd all talk about that person with each other.
Speaker A:It was like in a good way, in a good, positive manner.
Speaker A:It was really good to see.
Speaker A:So yeah, they did, you know, where they do the whole, you know, I don't know, most likely to succeed, like things.
Speaker A:They did one for every child.
Speaker A:And Fina got most likely to invent something crazy, which pretty much does kind of suit her.
Speaker A:She probably is the most likely to invent something crazy.
Speaker A:So, yeah, it was a really nice thing.
Speaker A:I think the thing that probably blessed them the most is a.
Speaker A:Certainly a difference I noticed from school was the boys in the class, like the girls in the class are very much like girls in the class were when I was at school.
Speaker A:And I know this is, you know, I'm only, I'm only seeing two classes, my class and then this current class of people.
Speaker A:No, that sounded wrong that this class of people, you know what I mean?
Speaker A:This, this collective group of people that are all in the class known as year six.
Speaker A:Yeah, that makes more sense, right?
Speaker A:I'm not trying to be classist.
Speaker A:And the big difference I could see was the boys were, I don't know, different to how they were.
Speaker A:Like when I was in school, boys were.
Speaker A:We play football.
Speaker A:We don't do emotional stuff.
Speaker A:We, we don't like singing and dancing.
Speaker A:And it was very much like an hour leave his disco.
Speaker A:All the boys stood at one side of the room while the girls danced in the middle and had a great time.
Speaker A:And we all just stood there going, oh, look at the girls dancing go.
Speaker A:What do they think they are?
Speaker A:Girls are gross.
Speaker A:How wrong I was.
Speaker A:But now the boys were the ones up dancing.
Speaker A:The girls were.
Speaker A:Well, they were still dancing, but they were dancing in groups, singing with each other.
Speaker A:The boys were doing the same thing.
Speaker A:The boys were jumping up on the stage.
Speaker A:Not showing, going off, but jumping up on the stage and actually dancing together and doing, like, choreographed dances with each other.
Speaker A:It was actually really good fun to see, which is not something you generally see from boys.
Speaker A:Maybe it is now and I've just not noticed it, but it was.
Speaker A:It was good.
Speaker A:And having the.
Speaker A:The boys be like that and the boys be into, like, theater and stuff, because some of them do theater.
Speaker A:They were.
Speaker A:I don't know if they would.
Speaker A:It just made them more supportive of one another, more supportive of the girls.
Speaker A:It was good.
Speaker A:It makes for a really good class.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I just thought I'd share that because it's a great thing to see.
Speaker A:All right, so as I said, school holidays are upon us.
Speaker A:That means schedule is going to be a little bit wild.
Speaker A:Might not be wild.
Speaker A:It might be absolutely fine.
Speaker A:Like I say this every year, and it's pretty much fine.
Speaker A:There might be one week where I have a blip.
Speaker A:And you never know, this week might be that blip.
Speaker A:So might not be a big problem.
Speaker A:But updates on new podcast as I've mentioned, several.
Speaker A:Well, for the last several weeks now, I know it's probably getting boring at this point, but that's what this podcast is for, is to update you on everything that's going on in my life.
Speaker A:Hot Tales is getting along really, really well.
Speaker A:I've put draft on hold for a little while.
Speaker A:It's not to say draft isn't happening, but I've had a bit of a brain wave.
Speaker A:It's hard to make three podcasts.
Speaker A:I struggle to make one.
Speaker A:It's hard to make three.
Speaker A:So what I've decided to do, I've decided to concentrate on one, get as many of those recorded as I can, and then concentrate on the other.
Speaker A:Because what I can do is I could write these scripts for these podcasts.
Speaker A:I'll write the.
Speaker A:The notes.
Speaker A:Mostly Pod Tails is going to be scripted because it's just easier.
Speaker A:I can't remember all those facts and I can't make up the.
Speaker A:The words for the podcast on the fly because I missed something.
Speaker A:So it.
Speaker A:Pod Tales is very much a scripted podcast, as much as it has always been the.
Speaker A:The Pod Tales section of the show.
Speaker A:It was always been very scripted.
Speaker A:There's no difference there.
Speaker A:It's just going to be longer.
Speaker A:But what I've done, I've recorded six episodes.
Speaker A:I've got another three on the go.
Speaker A:So that's nine in fact, no, actually, I've recorded seven episodes.
Speaker A:That's a lie.
Speaker A:I've recorded seven episodes and I've got another three on the go.
Speaker A:Three of which.
Speaker A:Those.
Speaker A:Those final three.
Speaker A:I say final three.
Speaker A:I don't know quite where in the lineup they're going to go yet.
Speaker A:They were submitted by friend of the show, Tom.
Speaker A:So thank you, Tom, for those.
Speaker A:And they're going to be a series because he's.
Speaker A:He's suggested three.
Speaker A:Three very similar topics, so they will be worth listening to when it comes closer.
Speaker A:Obviously, I'll let you know on this show when they're coming, but if you're a Vats of Freebie plus listener, you're going to get to hear them very soon.
Speaker A:I'm going to start just releasing them.
Speaker A:Like I might even start dropping one or two a week.
Speaker A:But I think what I'm going to do first, I'm going to hold them back in case I have an issue where I can't record an episode for the week and I'll drop a Pod Tales episode in instead.
Speaker A:That's again, that's only for.
Speaker A:That's a Freebie Plus Listener.
Speaker A:So if you want to make sure you get something every single week.
Speaker A:Sorry, every single week.
Speaker A:That's a lie, isn't it?
Speaker A:Every single Fortnight.
Speaker A:Subscribe to VATS, a freebie plus.
Speaker A:Once I've got 10 episodes of Pod Tales recorded.
Speaker A:I think I've said this before, but I just want to reiterate it.
Speaker A:Once I've got 10 episodes of it recorded, I'm going to start then looking at releasing the show and when I'm going to release it.
Speaker A:Now, initially my plan was to release it in September of this year.
Speaker A:However, I'm actually wondering if it might be worth trying to push it maybe a little bit further back so I can get some more recorded.
Speaker A:What I'd really like to do, where possible, Is have between 10 and 15 episodes of it recorded before I release it.
Speaker A:Because what I can do then is I can concentrate on writing some episodes of Draft.
Speaker A:And I want to do the same thing with draft.
Speaker A:I want to get 10 to 15 episodes of it recorded and then release it.
Speaker A:They're both going to be fortnightly shows.
Speaker A:I'm actually tied with the idea of making Draft a monthly show because draft is going to be harder to write because, well, it requires a lot more.
Speaker A:It's not a subject that's already happened.
Speaker A:It's not history.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's stuff that I have to find connections with and I have to decide on my list.
Speaker A:And it, it really depends on how easy it is to write the episodes.
Speaker A:So I suppose what I would say is vats of 3B plus listeners specifically.
Speaker A:I suppose in this situation or anybody, it's not a problem.
Speaker A:But you've already heard the first episode of Draft, so you know what it's like.
Speaker A:It is essentially me ranking things 1 to 5 or 5 to 1, you know, my top five of everything.
Speaker A:I was supposed to not technically have to be in a specific order, but you know, that's probably what will happen.
Speaker A:So if you've got any suggestions for those episodes, feel free to drop them.
Speaker A:The more more suggestions I get, the quicker I'll be able to write them because I don't have to come up with the show ideas myself because I have noticed that my ideas for the show I'll skew towards like media and pop culture and things like that.
Speaker A:And I do want to make sure there's a nice varied mix of stuff in there.
Speaker A:So yeah, do feel free to drop me some ideas on that.
Speaker A:But yeah, overall the idea is for each show I want to get 10 to 15 episodes written and then start releasing them.
Speaker A:And I don't want to release them at the same time as well.
Speaker A:I probably will do essentially what I'm going to start doing.
Speaker A:I'm going to actually start thinking of my whole podcasting venture as a little bit of a business because Draft and Pod Tales would be much easier to market than.
Speaker A:That's a freebie.
Speaker A:Because that's a freebie.
Speaker A:Generally it's not really about anything, is it?
Speaker A:It's really hard to describe the show to people because it is just me putting my thoughts out there.
Speaker A:It will actually probably become more relevant to people when I've got other podcasts and other projects on the go because, you know, it's the behind the scenes kind of, kind of show of what happens.
Speaker A:Just me rambling essentially.
Speaker A:So that's, that's kind of the plan there is.
Speaker A:I want to, I want to try and split the, the year up into quarters and I'm going to concentrate on one podcast per quarter, but have enough episodes to essentially fill 2/4 is roughly, is what I want to do.
Speaker A:That way I could write all my episodes in like the first three weeks of a quarter and then record and edit them all in the last, well, probably not week.
Speaker A:It takes a lot longer than that.
Speaker A:But then I could be recorded and editing all in the next several weeks and then I've got them ready to upload then and I can have them all Uploaded ready to go and not have to worry about posting them at the right time and things like that.
Speaker A:Because that's what with, that's a freebie.
Speaker A:I, I have to record, edit and publish all in the same like week or two week period, which is surprisingly difficult.
Speaker A:You would think it'd be dead easy, but when you have to make sure you're alone in the house when you're doing it, because any noise will show up on the microphone, it's, it's really difficult to do.
Speaker A:And also recording an episode whilst other family members are sat in the room trying to be quiet is extremely difficult.
Speaker A:And it's, it doesn't give you the, the same freedom to talk on the mic.
Speaker A:It's not that you don't want them to hear what you're saying because it can obviously listen to the episode afterwards, but you feel awkward while they're there or I still do at this stage.
Speaker A:I can't, I can't record something while somebody sat there.
Speaker A:I've tried it and it just, it doesn't work.
Speaker A:I'm mock, I'm too conscious about what I'm saying when I do it.
Speaker A:So that's the plan for those.
Speaker A:I realized that was an incoherent mess of ramblings, but I think you could probably make out what it is I'm trying to say to do, to do with those episodes.
Speaker A:So they're coming.
Speaker A:I've not forgotten about them.
Speaker A:They are coming.
Speaker A:I'm really working very hard on them.
Speaker A:It just doesn't appear that way because nothing's being released yet.
Speaker A:But I promise you they are coming.
Speaker A:The other thing I wanted to ask about as well, in terms of the show and the website and everything, is what y' all think of the name.
Speaker A:Like, I love the name for the website, Bug fixes and improvements.
Speaker A:But do you think the web address is just a little bit too long because it's bug fixes and improvements.com in case you can't remember.
Speaker A:Like, for me it's fine, but I'm wondering if it's maybe just a little bit too long for people.
Speaker A:You have to like, remember and enter.
Speaker A:And again, you know, it's not like I've got a thousand subscribers and hundreds of people viewing the website every week.
Speaker A:Interestingly, I do have like a few hundred people visiting the website each week, which is dead surprising.
Speaker A:And it's not even like they're going on one page.
Speaker A:The people are actually reading my articles, which is a little bit weird because I, I, I'm not doing anything to Promote them.
Speaker A:So for finding these from searches.
Speaker A:And I can see the Google searches that they're finding from, like.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, that would actually bring up my website.
Speaker A:That's weird.
Speaker A:And they're spending time on it.
Speaker A:It's bizarre.
Speaker A:It's a strange feeling.
Speaker A:But I was thinking of adding a.
Speaker A:Like a second URL that I could give out, which will be bugs and fixes dot com.
Speaker A:Much quicker.
Speaker A:But is it clear when I say it?
Speaker A:I'm not too sure.
Speaker A:So, yeah, just, you know, opinions there would be.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker A:Anywho, I know there are some of you that listen to this show that I hear for the stories here, for the fun stuff, not here for the.
Speaker A:The business stuff and the, the, you know, the putting it all together stuff.
Speaker A:And I hear you.
Speaker A:I do hear you.
Speaker A:I actually was worried that this episode was going to be short and I've already been talking for 18 minutes at this point.
Speaker A:Now some of that will probably be cut out because there was a bit of a gap because I had a bit of a brain fart and couldn't remember what I was saying at one point.
Speaker A:But none of you know that because I cut it out of the show.
Speaker A:I'm assuming I did, actually, at this point I've cut nothing out because it's just a recording.
Speaker A:We'll see, shall we?
Speaker A:No, I'm definitely going to cut that out.
Speaker A:But I have got some stories for you.
Speaker A:I've actually got three, maybe four stories.
Speaker A:It depends how you count them.
Speaker A:Let's start with the bloody shoe story.
Speaker A:So I walk it.
Speaker A:The kids to school of like a week or two ago, just before they broke up, walking across.
Speaker A:There's a little bit of a field that we walk across and all of a sudden I get this stabbing pain in the heel of my right foot.
Speaker A:Hurt like hell.
Speaker A:And I just carried on because I was like, oh, that was weird.
Speaker A:Might be a shoe in my stone.
Speaker A:A shoe in my stone.
Speaker A:A stone in my shoe.
Speaker A:You get a shoe in your stone.
Speaker A:So anyway, I'm walking along and it wasn't hurting that much at that point.
Speaker A:It was a little bit uncomfortable.
Speaker A:I was like, oh, be a stone in my shoe.
Speaker A:I'll sort it out in a bit.
Speaker A:But drops the kids off, comes back and it's.
Speaker A:It's hurting more now and it's throbbing at this point.
Speaker A:And I had somewhere to be.
Speaker A:I can't actually remember where I needed to be.
Speaker A:I would remember thinking, I can't be dealing with this right now because I've got somewhere I need to be.
Speaker A:Like, I. I Didn't have time to go home because it was the wrong direction.
Speaker A:Oh, it's annoying me that I can't remember what it was.
Speaker A:I had to be.
Speaker A:It doesn't really matter anyway.
Speaker A:The place I had to be doesn't factor into it at all.
Speaker A:So I, I got back to the car, I start driving and I realized that my foot was hurting so much that I was struggling to press the accelerator pedal.
Speaker A:So I pulled over and I took my shoe off and it turned out that a piece of the inside of my shoe, like there's a plastic bit on the inside of the shoe that build, that builds the heel, it had actually broken off, pushed up through the sole of the shoe and it had stabbed into my foot and my foot was bleeding like crazy.
Speaker A:So there's a, there's a pool of blood in my shoe.
Speaker A:So I was like, well, can't go like this.
Speaker A:So I, I pulled off and went to ASDA thinking I'll just grab a cheap pair of shoes from asda.
Speaker A:I haven't got time to think about it right now.
Speaker A:I'll just grab like a pair of slip ons or something like that.
Speaker A:And that's what I did.
Speaker A:I get to ASDA and I went about these shoes and I bought some socks as well because I knew I was covered in blood.
Speaker A:But I didn't think about it any more than that.
Speaker A:All I knew is I needed to go and get the blood off my shoe.
Speaker A:I had some plasters as well, but I had plasters in the car.
Speaker A:So I threw a, throw a pack in my pocket and then went running off to the, to Asda gets these shoes because it.
Speaker A:To the toilet at ASDA and took my shoe off and there was blood everywhere.
Speaker A:I didn't even realize it.
Speaker A:My foot was squelching.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker A:Once I got to the quiet area of the, of the, of asda's bog, I suppose it was going as I was walking.
Speaker A:So I took my shoe off, I took my sock off.
Speaker A:There was blood.
Speaker A:There was this thing stuck in my foot.
Speaker A:I was able to pull it out and that made more blood.
Speaker A:I was like, oh crap.
Speaker A:So I had to basically hoist my leg up onto the sink in ASDA and try and wash the blood off using the tap.
Speaker A:So I wrote my pants pant leg up, which there was blood on the inside of my pants at this point.
Speaker A:So I. Luckily I had jeans on.
Speaker A:So you couldn't quite tell because it was on the inside.
Speaker A:I'm washing the blood off.
Speaker A:The only thing I had was the tissue from the.
Speaker A:From the toilet, because they don't have hand towels, you know, like paper towels.
Speaker A:They have hand dryers.
Speaker A:So I'm.
Speaker A:I'm mopping all that's blood up with the tissue.
Speaker A:There was.
Speaker A:There was blood.
Speaker A:You like smeared blood all over the sink, all over the floor.
Speaker A:I'd managed to, like, stem the bleeding.
Speaker A:I got a plaster on, but.
Speaker A:But at this point, my foot's wet with cold water, and I'm like, oh, no.
Speaker A:So then I had to go over to the hand dryer and try and hold my foot up under the hand dryer.
Speaker A:In the meantime, somebody walks in and I'm stood surrounded by smeared blood everywhere with my foot held in the air at the hand dryer going because I'm struggling to lift it up because I'm fat.
Speaker A:And I'm trying to dry my leg.
Speaker A:And it was the.
Speaker A:The most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.
Speaker A:I wish somebody had taken a picture so I could show you.
Speaker A:But eventually I dried my.
Speaker A:My foot.
Speaker A:I put the new socks on, I put the new shoes on.
Speaker A:The new shoes were too big.
Speaker A:They were flopping about.
Speaker A:But by this point, I'd got blood on the inside of them of one of them.
Speaker A:So I'm like, well, I can't return them.
Speaker A:So I was like, I'll just have to deal with it.
Speaker A:I'll just have to deal with it.
Speaker A:So I cleaned up the blood as much as I could with literally with bog roll.
Speaker A:That's all I had.
Speaker A:So I'm cleaning it up.
Speaker A:I threw it all in the toilet.
Speaker A:I flushed it.
Speaker A:Looking back at it, I'm like, that's gross.
Speaker A:I can't.
Speaker A:I can't do that.
Speaker A:I need to tell somebody.
Speaker A:So I leave the bathroom and I'm looking around for a member, and I couldn't find anybody that was free.
Speaker A:I was like, you know what?
Speaker A:I'm going to save myself the embarrassment.
Speaker A:Somebody's got to go in there and they're going to clean it anyway.
Speaker A:I'm not usually a fan of leaving a mess for somebody because as much as, you know, people are paid to clean that toilet for.
Speaker A:Not paid to clean stuff like that up for.
Speaker A:Not paid to clean our up.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And our blood.
Speaker A:It's just a general tidiness.
Speaker A:But I was like, you know what?
Speaker A:I can't do anything.
Speaker A:I'm in a rush.
Speaker A:I'm already late at this point.
Speaker A:I've got to go.
Speaker A:So I did.
Speaker A:I left.
Speaker A:And I felt very guilty about it.
Speaker A:But then I got my karma later on, and I don't Even believe in karma.
Speaker A:But later on, so I'd done whatever it was I was doing.
Speaker A:I've got these stupidly ill fitting shoes on.
Speaker A:They were driving me insane or they, they weren't falling off but they were doing that thing where they slap your feet when you walk because you, you, they're just too, too big for your feet.
Speaker A:It was like I was wearing flip flops, so that was bad enough.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:Later on in the day I needed some shopping for summer.
Speaker A:I can't remember what it was before I went to pick the kids up from school.
Speaker A:I was like, right, I'm gonna nip to Aldi or Sainsbury's.
Speaker A:Whichever one it is, I need to go to and it'll be fine, it'll be all good.
Speaker A:Spoiler alert.
Speaker A:It was not all good.
Speaker A:I drives up to the car park.
Speaker A:It's the up.
Speaker A:It's the car park that I've told you about before that gets extremely busy.
Speaker A:So I've started just parking on the top floor now.
Speaker A:It's so much easier.
Speaker A:Gets on the top floor of the car park.
Speaker A:Realized as I pulled up that I've got a puncture.
Speaker A:Front tire completely flat.
Speaker A:Now again, this is my fault.
Speaker A:I've noticed that these tires are getting lower and lower for the last week.
Speaker A:Well, the, the front, both the front tires are getting low, but one in particular was very low.
Speaker A:And I kept saying to myself, I'll do it when I pass the next petrol stat.
Speaker A:And I just kept forgetting and it wasn't so bad that it needed to be done right away.
Speaker A:It would have been fine if I didn't do it, but it would have eventually worn the tire away on the edges because of the way it was worn, because of the way it was flat.
Speaker A:Anyway, it had gone completely flat and I driven on it flat.
Speaker A:So it was ruined.
Speaker A:The tire was ruined.
Speaker A:I didn't even notice it had gone flat when I was driving.
Speaker A:There's a little bit of a point when I was driving down the road I was like, car seems to be a bit hard to steer.
Speaker A:I don't know what's going on there.
Speaker A:Maybe I'm just imagining, maybe I'm tired, you know.
Speaker A:No, no, the tire was flat.
Speaker A:It's obviously that's what it was.
Speaker A:I just wasn't thinking at the time.
Speaker A:So I've got a flat tire.
Speaker A:In my infinite wisdom I thought, well, I'll go and do my shopping first, right?
Speaker A:It's half past two.
Speaker A:At this point I needed to be leaving this car park at 3 o' clock to make it for the kids on time.
Speaker A:I did the shopping.
Speaker A:I was quick with the shopping.
Speaker A:Actually, I didn't do the shopping.
Speaker A:I got to Aldi.
Speaker A:I'm walking around Aldi and all I'm thinking about is this tire.
Speaker A:So, so I was.
Speaker A:So I thought, no, I need to sort that wiggle out because what if it takes me to a while to do it?
Speaker A:I could always do the shopping afterwards.
Speaker A:It's not a problem.
Speaker A:So I goes back to the car, open the boot, which was full of stuff because I've been ferrying stuff around all the, all week because of the, the school disco that's happening at the end of that week.
Speaker A:Because I had, I had a lot of stuff in the boot of the car for it because we were part of the people getting it ready and buying the decorations and everything.
Speaker A:I, I had to empty the boots.
Speaker A:I empties the boot into the back, into the back seats of the car.
Speaker A:I open, I opened the flap for the spare.
Speaker A:And that's when I realized that I don't have a jack.
Speaker A:I've got everything else to change the wheel, but there's no jack.
Speaker A:I've never noticed this before.
Speaker A:Well, actually thinking about it, I think I did know.
Speaker A:I just forgot.
Speaker A:You know, it's one of those things where you're like, oh, I'll sort that out.
Speaker A:And there just wasn't one.
Speaker A:When we got the car, we got the car several years ago and I've just never thought about it since.
Speaker A:It sort of all come flooding back to me as I looked in the boat.
Speaker A:I was like, oh, no, I've not got a jack.
Speaker A:What am I gonna do?
Speaker A:So I thought, right, well, I'll.
Speaker A:I could ring around and ask like family members if they've got a jack that I can borrow.
Speaker A:See if you can drop it off and I'll take it back to them later.
Speaker A:But then I'm like, well, that's going to take time.
Speaker A:And, and most, well, I say most of them, all of them will have also needed to be picking kids up from school.
Speaker A:So there's no way they could have got there before I can pick the kids up.
Speaker A:So my first thing I did is I rang school and said, look, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to put the kids in after school club for me because I've, I've had this situation.
Speaker A:I don't think I'm going to be able to make it on time.
Speaker A:Even if I start walking now, I'll not be on time.
Speaker A:And then I've still Got to sort the car out after that.
Speaker A:So it's probably better for me to just put them in after school club like, yep, that's not a problem, it's fine.
Speaker A:So that's that problem solved, right?
Speaker A:That panic's over.
Speaker A:And then I thought, well, I'm in the rac.
Speaker A:I could just call the RAC out.
Speaker A:They can sort it out.
Speaker A:It's what it's there for, right?
Speaker A:So I found the racing and sure enough, they came out.
Speaker A:They were pretty quick as well.
Speaker A:I was quite surprised.
Speaker A:They, they arrived at roughly about 3:40 I think it was.
Speaker A:So I didn't even wait an hour, which was I thought was pretty impressive.
Speaker A:The guy was, you know, nice and all.
Speaker A:However, however two things happened is after I called the rac, I thought to myself, you know what I'll do?
Speaker A:I'll get the spare wheel out for him ready.
Speaker A:Because that's a nice gesture, right?
Speaker A:Because to get the spare wheel out, the screw that holds the spare wheel in is rusted solid.
Speaker A:It is not coming out.
Speaker A:And, and of course I've only got one hand to twist it with my other hand.
Speaker A:It still isn't capable of gripping something hard enough and twisting it.
Speaker A:I was a bit stuffed.
Speaker A:I, I could, I couldn't do it as from for the life of me.
Speaker A:So I'm looking at the RAC thing thinking, is there a way of letting them know this?
Speaker A:Because it, it might require something more than what they can send around.
Speaker A:And in big bold letters on the, in the app, when you, after you've ordered it, it said if any of the details you have submitted are false or anything changes, you may be charged.
Speaker A:We may not be able to carry out the work and you'll have to make another call.
Speaker A:And I'm like, oh crap.
Speaker A:And there's like a comments box where you can say, do you want to send any updates?
Speaker A:So I sent several updates and never received a reply or anything.
Speaker A:I don't even know if you can receive a reply.
Speaker A:So I sent the updates.
Speaker A:The guy turns up and I said, did you get the update about the me not being able to get the Wheeler?
Speaker A:He said, yeah, yeah, it's not a problem, I'll see if I can sort it.
Speaker A:And we lifts it up.
Speaker A:And he tried and he couldn't turn it either.
Speaker A:And I'm like, well I said, to be honest, I don't mind if you like if you've got a pair of bolt cutters and you can just cut the stem, I don't mind, it's fine.
Speaker A:Makes no difference.
Speaker A:To me, it's gonna come out anyway.
Speaker A:Oh, you're not bothered about it breaking?
Speaker A:I went, no, no, not at all.
Speaker A:And he went, oh, all right.
Speaker A:And he just reached out, grabbed onto the plastic thing on top and just snapped it off.
Speaker A:Just like, no effort at all.
Speaker A:He went crunk.
Speaker A:And it came off.
Speaker A:I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker A:Part of me was like, how did that not just happen?
Speaker A:When we tried to twist it, it was so weak.
Speaker A:Anyway, he lifted the wheel out over the top of it.
Speaker A:But the big problem here was before all this.
Speaker A:I have skipped a bit on purpose here.
Speaker A:Before all this, guess what was in the boot of my car?
Speaker A:The shoes that were covered in blood from the other day.
Speaker A:Yeah, Shoes coated in blood, full of bits of tissue with blood inside them.
Speaker A:Because I was trying to dry it all up before.
Speaker A:And before I threw it away, and I'd forgotten all about them.
Speaker A:And the first thing he saw when I opened the boot, because we have, like, a boot tidy in the.
Speaker A:In the.
Speaker A:In the boot, funnily enough.
Speaker A:And they were sort of propped into that, so I hadn't moved him into the back of the car with everything else.
Speaker A:And they were coated in blood.
Speaker A:And I saw them as he lifted the thing up, and I immediately thought, oh, crap.
Speaker A:And I grabbed them and moved them.
Speaker A:So I'm stuck there now holding a pair of trainers, covered in blood, and he's looking at me, and I'm just ignoring it, trying to, like, make it seem like nothing happened.
Speaker A:And I'm ignoring it and ignoring it.
Speaker A:And we got the wheel out, and he's.
Speaker A:And I saw.
Speaker A:I saw him go and get, like.
Speaker A:He went and got the jack out of his car.
Speaker A:He jacked.
Speaker A:He jacked the car up, and he.
Speaker A:And he looked at me, looked at the shoes, and I just went.
Speaker A:I didn't kill anybody.
Speaker A:Anyway, okay.
Speaker A:Didn't know what else to say.
Speaker A:So I'm like.
Speaker A:But I cut my foot.
Speaker A:And he looks down at my feet, and you think he tells.
Speaker A:Like, there's no blood there.
Speaker A:And I'm like, it was the other day.
Speaker A:I just haven't thrown my shoes away yet.
Speaker A:I bled.
Speaker A:And the more I talked, the more it looked weird.
Speaker A:And eventually he just.
Speaker A:He.
Speaker A:He changed my wheel and he.
Speaker A:And he left.
Speaker A:He left pretty quickly.
Speaker A:So, yeah, the bloody shoes came back to bite me on the ass, as does with these things.
Speaker A:I accidentally found a workaround for the Channel 5 problem you may remember last week.
Speaker A:Sorry, excuse me, I have a cough.
Speaker A:I've tried to edit as many of the coughs out as I can, but if you've heard coughs, I'm sorry, I can't avoid it.
Speaker A:It's always the case with me.
Speaker A:There's always something happening, isn't there?
Speaker A:Yeah, I. I mentioned that I received a whole bunch of ads in the Channel 5 app.
Speaker A:Anyway, the other night I went to watch an episode of Blind Spot, my new favorite show, which incidentally, is an absolutely ridiculous show, but you should have.
Speaker A:You should totally watch it.
Speaker A:It's really good.
Speaker A:It's one of those trashy shows.
Speaker A:That's good because it's trashy, but it's so appealing.
Speaker A:You should totally watch it.
Speaker A:So I went to watch an episode and I pressed play.
Speaker A:My hearing aids are connected to my iPad.
Speaker A:I press play and I walked away to make myself a cup of coffee because I knew there was going to be four ads on before the show and I had time to make coffee.
Speaker A:And I'm making the coffee.
Speaker A:I'm like, I've not heard anything yet.
Speaker A:Nothing's happened.
Speaker A:It's not.
Speaker A:Started playing.
Speaker A:What's going on there?
Speaker A:So it goes back over to my iPad and there's an error on the screen saying, unable to play.
Speaker A:And I thought, oh, that's weird.
Speaker A:Why is it doing that?
Speaker A:So I, you know, I did the whole, like, I quit the app, opened it again, started playing, doesn't play.
Speaker A:It says, there's an error.
Speaker A:Try to play.
Speaker A:I deleted the app, reinstalled it.
Speaker A:All kinds of stuff going wrong.
Speaker A:Now I am running a beta version of my iPad's software.
Speaker A:So I just figured it's that the app isn't compatible for whatever reason anymore.
Speaker A:Even though previously I was also running that, but a new update had been out since.
Speaker A:So I just figured there's an issue there.
Speaker A:So I was like, oh, that means I'm not going to be able to watch it.
Speaker A:That's a shame.
Speaker A:But I could wait till the, you know, till it gets fixed.
Speaker A:Not a huge problem.
Speaker A:I'd not planned on finishing this show, like, in any particular speed or anything like that.
Speaker A:Then I had a bit of a thought.
Speaker A:I was like, oh, maybe you can watch through the website.
Speaker A:Let's try that.
Speaker A:So I went to channel5.com, logged in, press play, and the show started playing.
Speaker A:But that's what I mean.
Speaker A:The show started playing.
Speaker A:Oh, the rabbit just went bad.
Speaker A:I think I scared it.
Speaker A:It dove from the bottom touch to the top part of it.
Speaker A:Such in one leap was supposed to be a ladder there.
Speaker A:Wow, that rabbit could jump.
Speaker A:Yeah, it just started playing.
Speaker A:No ads.
Speaker A:And that's what I Realized or discovered, I suppose.
Speaker A:The website doesn't display ads now, I don't know if it's supposed to be like that or if it's again, something to do with the software on my iPad, but I've done it on my iPad, my phone and my Mac.
Speaker A:It doesn't play ads, so I've just been watching through channel5.com and I don't have to watch any ads.
Speaker A:It's been great.
Speaker A:So, yeah, little tip for you there.
Speaker A:Maybe give it a try, let me know what happens for you.
Speaker A:I'd love to know if it's.
Speaker A:If it's the same on currently released software or other devices because it's a bit weird that they play ads in the app but not on the website.
Speaker A:You'd think it'd be the other way around.
Speaker A:Or at least on both.
Speaker A:Final story of the day.
Speaker A:Of the.
Speaker A:Of the day?
Speaker A:Well, yeah, it is of the day, but of the show.
Speaker A:I, I was on my way home from work the other night and I get the tram.
Speaker A:I get off the tram, my car's at a car park where I parked up, you know, like a park and ride situation.
Speaker A:So I, I gets to the car, goes to my usual spot because I always park in the same spot.
Speaker A:I don't know why, it's just the one that's free when I get there and habit, you know.
Speaker A:Actually, weirdly, I park in one spot during the week, in a different spot at the weekend.
Speaker A:Because at the weekend when I get there, the car park's nearly always empty.
Speaker A:So I park in the spot that's the, like first in front of the gate when you walk through the gate.
Speaker A:Whereas on the weekdays I park on completely the opposite side of the car park because the car park's almost full.
Speaker A:It was a weekend day.
Speaker A:I get to the car and I noticed a big scuff down the side of it on the back wheel arch.
Speaker A:And at first I was like, well, that's gotten worse because I have got a scuff down one side.
Speaker A:If you recall, I scraped my car down a pillar a few months back.
Speaker A:But then I realized it's the opposite side.
Speaker A:And this was all like, like, like black, like something with black painted from down the side it.
Speaker A:And it was dented quite badly as well.
Speaker A:Like mine isn't dented.
Speaker A:You can actually hardly see the.
Speaker A:What the one on mine.
Speaker A:I, I can see it because I know it's there.
Speaker A:No one else ever notices it until I point it out.
Speaker A:I was like, oh no, what's happened?
Speaker A:There is a bay Next to mine, that's a narrow bay.
Speaker A:And I thought, oh, maybe somebody's scuffed it.
Speaker A:So I goes over and I'm trying to rub it.
Speaker A:And it is.
Speaker A:Rub.
Speaker A:It's black paint, basically, some.
Speaker A:Something scuffed down the side of it with black paint.
Speaker A:I was like, balls, that's really awful.
Speaker A:And it was dented, so I started trying to push the dents out.
Speaker A:And I was.
Speaker A:I was able to, like, some of the dents are push out, but it wasn't looking any better.
Speaker A:It did nothing.
Speaker A:So I sort of resigned myself to the fact that I've now got a bunch of dents in the side of the car.
Speaker A:And I was a bit gutted.
Speaker A:So I thought, you saw it.
Speaker A:I'll just.
Speaker A:I'll go home.
Speaker A:I'm like, there's no point in doing any more here.
Speaker A:Really disappointing.
Speaker A:And anyway, I opened the car.
Speaker A:I, you know, I pressed the button to unlock the car.
Speaker A:That's when I realized it wasn't my bleeding car.
Speaker A:It was somebody else's car.
Speaker A:I forgot that there was somebody parked in that space that morning.
Speaker A:So I'd parked on the opposite side of the car park where I normally park.
Speaker A:Oh, no.
Speaker A:So I've just been rubbing the side of this car and pushing the thing.
Speaker A:And then I realized it wasn't mine.
Speaker A:When I turned around to look where my car was in between us, there was another person parked in their car sort of behind me, watching me, thinking, oh, no, that guy's car must be dented.
Speaker A:And I. I'd realized.
Speaker A:So I'm like, crap, what do I do now?
Speaker A:I mean, obviously the thing you do is you just walk away and go get in your car and drive off.
Speaker A:That person's probably going to think that was weird, but that's it.
Speaker A:It doesn't matter.
Speaker A:But knowing my head, I'm like, well, I've got to pretend this is my car for a bit now till they drive off so I don't look weird.
Speaker A:So I went and stood in front of it and pretended I was making a phone call.
Speaker A:I got my phone out and started, like, dabbing.
Speaker A:I was doing nothing.
Speaker A:I was just swiping the screen left, searching through my apps, you know, just making it look like I was using my phone.
Speaker A:And they weren't going anywhere.
Speaker A:And I could see them watching me, which was really weird.
Speaker A:They were just obviously staring out the front window.
Speaker A:They were probably watching the road behind me, but it looked to me like they were watching me.
Speaker A:And it got to a point where it was awkward because I'd been stuck there for about two or three minutes and I was like, well, I can't pretend anymore.
Speaker A:So I just walked off to my car and got in my car and I could only imagine what they must have been thinking.
Speaker A:I just got in it and drove off.
Speaker A:I sort of did that thing where you laugh at yourself, shake your head as if you've done something stupid.
Speaker A:You know, you put on a performance like when you're walking down the street and you go, oh, no, I forgot something, and you turn around and start walking the opposite way.
Speaker A:I did that kind of thing.
Speaker A:So hopefully they didn't think I was too insane.
Speaker A:But they were.
Speaker A:I mean, they would have been right, wouldn't they?
Speaker A:Yeah, I couldn't.
Speaker A:I couldn't believe it was one of the dumbest things I've done in ages.
Speaker A:Probably wasn't, actually.
Speaker A:That's probably way down there on the list of dumb things that I've done.
Speaker A:Anyway, that is the final story, story of the show.
Speaker A:That is the end of this week's show almost before I get to the next thing.
Speaker A:The final thing I want to just say, remember, you could submit topics for Pod Tales.
Speaker A:You can submit drafts by going to Bug Fixes and Improvements dot com.
Speaker A:You can write me letters and I'll read out on the show.
Speaker A:You can give me feedback, you can do all of the things.
Speaker A:I have got blog posts up there.
Speaker A:I've got more and more stuff going up there all the time.
Speaker A:So check out bug fixes and improvements.com if you want to reach out to me on social media here.
Speaker A:My.
Speaker A:All of my social media information is on the website as well.
Speaker A:You just click on the contact button at the top, it'll take you to a contact form and links to the social media that I use the most.
Speaker A:I mean, the truth is I don't use social media that often.
Speaker A:But if you at me, I will receive it because I've got notifications turned on for all of the ones that are on there.
Speaker A:But the final thing of the show which you may have noticed was missing from the beginning because I'm going to start doing it at the end, I think is Make Me Laugh.
Speaker A:And this week's Make Me Laugh comes from friend of the show Tom.
Speaker A:And Tom says, oh, I forgot to tell you, I'm going to be on a new BBC TV show, Hoarders.
Speaker A:I won't tell you what happens on it.
Speaker A:I don't want to give anything away.
Speaker A:It did make me laugh.
