Hey, listeners, it's time for another Therapy Natters episode, the podcast about therapy, mental health, and all those things that make us a little bit stuck sometimes. I'm psychotherapist Richard Nichols, and alongside me for the Ride is fellow psychotherapist, Fiona Biddle. Good day, Fiona. Happy Christmas by the way. How you
Oh, happy Christmas to you. I'm doing fine. How are you? I hear it was your birthday quite recently. Did you have a nice time?
Yes I did. I had a lazy day. I finished a book that I'd started reading a week ago, but I've only been sort of reading it 20 minutes at a time and I really wanted to just sit down and absorb it. Cause I do like good fiction, you know, good well-written stories. So yeah, I took the morning off work, lit a fire in the front room 'cos it was freezing, it's always freezing in December. My birthday's either wet or cold
Hmm.
I lit a fire. and just sat and finished this book that I've been reading and then went to work in the afternoon and then had a catch up with a couple of friends. And then the family, it was nice. I know nothing special. It was my, it was my 47th birthday, so it's not a major number or anything. And when somebody sent me a message that said something like Happy birthday youngster. Cuz Andy, this, friend of mine he's a little older than me. Happy birthday youngster.
I'm like, yeah, I'm still a child, aren't I? I'm never gonna grow up am I?
We don't really, there's always a part of us that's a child, isn't there? I hope that's a good thing.
It is for most of us, it's a good thing. Sometimes our inner child is in a bit of pain and when our child shows itself, it's in a vulnerable state and that's where us as therapists step in and help with that inner child to heal. And that makes it all worthwhile. I think. I quite enjoy being a therapist. I'm not sure I could do anything else now. I've been doing it for, so long.
No. I sometimes see other things that people are doing. I can't think of an example right now, but I see. And I think, oh, I'd like to do that. Oh, I'd like to do that. And then I think, actually, no. No, I wouldn't. I'm quite happy doing what I'm doing. Yeah.
It's good to have maybe one thing that you are passionate about. . And if you can be fortunate enough to turn that into a career, like the old story goes, you're never working a day in your life again. In a way. I mean, it's still work, it's still tiring, and they're still gonna pay us to do it. I mean, I'd do it for free if I could, but from all the studies that have been done over the years, free therapy isn't as successful as when people pay.
And if you go back to our placebo episode a couple of episodes ago, you'll, you'll understand why. Because it's got value when you pay for something. And that's an issue that we've got in the UK because of the nhs. With it being free at point of use, it kind of gets devalued in people's minds and that's not something we can really fix easily, if at all. We've just gotta be aware of it. I think.
It certainly is a tricky one. I don't have any answers, but I certainly agree that if people have a buy-in, they're more likely to be committed to following it through because therapy is not something that is done to you. It's a do with not a do to process. So you know, if you go to your GP cuz you've got an infection and they give you antibiotics, they're doing it to you. Your only action is taking the tablets. But even then, you're quite right, people don't take it as seriously.
And we see all these stories don't we, of the things that people have called ambulances for or gone to the GP for and. Yeah, there's got to be some change somehow, but I'm glad I don't have to sort that one out.
Hmm. One of the nice things about being a therapist, and we do have listeners that are on, cause I've had a few messages actually, people on stage two counseling courses are listening to this. So hello to you. Starting at the beginning of your counseling training, and they're thinking of becoming therapists. Fantastic. It's very varied. Every day is gonna be different. Every client you see has got a different story to tell and a different, reactivity maybe to some of their issues.
But some people are in hardly any pain at all emotionally, but they recognize I need to get this nipped in the bud. Let's talk about this with somebody. And others are further down the line after 20 years of having something getting worse and worse and worse and worse over time until it's life controlling and everybody in between. So every client is different and gets treated differently in a way. Every day is different and, and I think that that suits me cuz I do like variety.
It really does suit me. You're in a
Yes, I absolutely, I couldn't be a C B T therapist, which is the one that's most mechanized. It's, oh, they've got X issue so you do Y. Oh, no. To me it's that relationship. They are different. I'm not like any other therapist. No therapist is like any other therapist, and it's that combination. So yeah, you never know what you're gonna get. Some can be relatively straightforward. But there's not a huge link between how severe their issues are and how easy it is to sort it out.
Cuz sometimes if they're in a lot of pain, they've got more motivation to fix it than
Mm-hmm.
ones who aren't and just have a sort of cognitive view that they need to sort this out.
Yeah. And, and C B T, although sometimes gets a bit of a bad press because it, it isn't as therapeutic as it used to be when it was first sort of put together as, as a, as a theory out of cognitive therapy and behavioural therapy, and that those two concepts were merged. It was still therapy. It was still about listening and listening to people's stories and making people feel safe. The modern version of C B T is often, like you say, worksheets.
Let's just, so tell me some of the thoughts that you've been having and let's look at how we can challenge that. Is there any evidence that that thought is, is is based on reality? Oh, actually, no. There's no evidence for that. Okay. So now you can
Stop thinking you do.
stop. Yeah, well just stop thinking that. Oh, is it that easy? And no, it, it's not that easy, but it's the first place that people will see listed as a treatment. When they Google things like Anxiety. Phobias. If they go to the GP and say they need a blood test, and they, oh, I can't have a blood test. I'm just, just the thought of a needle just makes me want faint. Just right now, just the thought of it. I can feel my head pounding. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go doc.
And they start going dizzy, and the eyes roll back in the head from the thought of having a blood test. and the first place that the GP will, send them is, okay, we need to look at some C B T. Well, C B T is such a mechanistic and, and thought based. It's more cognitive. Well, no, it's cognitive and behavioral. That's the point. So what are you thinking and what are you doing? But actually that's a feeling issue that's in their body.
And that's something that's been ingrained in them for a long time by the sound. Or from a single trauma. Sometimes that can be a trauma response and the brain goes, oh, I remember this, shut down. And just closes down. Phobias are strange cuz you can get so many extremes. People at one end that say, oh, I don't like spiders. Well, that's not necessarily a phobia if you don't like it. If, oh, I can't get outta bed. There might be a spider, somewhere.
That's a phobia and that, that's how I differentiate fears and phobias. You can have a, a fear of dogs because there's one walking towards you and you go, I think I'll cross the road. They might, bite me. Hmm, that's a fear, but I, I can't leave the house. There might be a dog out there. That's life controlling and that's when it becomes a phobia. That's how I tend to think of it.
Yeah, I mean, we can use the word rational or irrational to see the difference as well. Yeah, if you faced with a dog that's snarling at you and drooling, then it's probably best to be a little bit afraid and to turn away and go somewhere else. That's sort of a sensible, rational response. But if you are terrified when there's a fluffy little puppy, then not so rational.
And there are some phobias, of course, that are, are completely irrational because they don't link into anything that's possibly dangerous at all. I mean, the one that springs to mind I sort of this written about, I haven't had anybody with it, but was a fear of buttons.
Oh, that's a common one. Yeah.
Yeah, it's, it's, it certainly is not uncommon, but I mean, to link that to anything that's dangerous. Yes, you could choke on one, but most people don't put buttons in their mouths anyway, so it's a little bit of a
It's the thought that counts.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah. Christmas is a, a tricky phobic response time for, for a lot of people. there are people with Santa phobia. They've just got this negative association because it is unusual, this big character that comes out once a year. And if you are three years old sitting on someone's knee and What the heck is going on, if that gets locked in and it's a bit scary, then yeah, you can carry that with you. And then there's fear of loud noises and Christmas crackers and things.
Somebody pulls a Christmas cracker, you can see it on their face. Sometimes there's a, you can see 'em squinting. Oh, it's gonna go pop. And balloons. That's quite a common phobia as well. You do get a few balloons at Christmas, but,
loud noises can be dangerous, so. There's a, a hint of rational out of proportionness to a fear of balloons.
I'm surprised we've not had more questions about phobias sent to us. Obviously, with it being such a, a common thing to have to have a phobic response. I'm not sure if we have, I know we've had one and we can mention that now, but I'm, I'm surprised we haven't had more in the past. I don't think we have, haven't we?
we haven't I did a check through and No, we talked about agoraphobia. Which is a very particular form of phobia. I think that was in episode two. But let's have a, let's have a read. Do you want to read it? Do you want me to read it?
You can read it. It's probably your turn. Go on.
Okay. This is from anonymous and Anonymous says I used to travel more and be fine with a big suitcase on wheels going down escalators. No problem. But about seven years or so ago, I was in Tesco with a shopping trolley, the pull home bag type, and the escalator seemed so steep and the bag so full, I panicked and found the lift. This is now a problem for me only with a bag, suitcase or holding hands with my young children.
I get worried of the drop and falling on every step and worry about me keeping the kids safe using them. Please, how can I train my brain back to not worrying about using them. Also going up high can be a worry. I don't want my children to get any hangups about this, so try not to show that I'm worried too much. I'm fine with heights. I like theme parks. I've jumped out of planes and done a bungee jump, but I panic at the moving stairs. Please help. I'm only in my late thirties and need advice.
Thank you. Aw, it's
Oh.
It's very sweet. I think there's a, a, a factor here of, which I think is really important to highlight. We've already touched on it, but that's about the actual danger involved in something that people might be phobic of. So you said it's about spiders earlier in the uk being phobic of spiders. Well, Spiders here are not dangerous. I mean, I think it's technically possible that you might get some sort of something from a spider bite, but it's so, so, so, so,
a blister. yeah, look, a look a bee sting.
it's, it's very, very unlikely to cause any damage. But if you were living in Australia, then that would be a different story. So the context depends. But just to go to anonymous point of escalators, especially with small children. You do need to take care. I absolutely do need to really take care.
I mean, I remember as a small child, I was told horror stories I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but it was sort of you've, you've got to stand perfectly still and pay an awful lot of attention getting on or off, or you'll get trapped. And I mean, no, you don't get trapped, but you do need to take care. You could fall. Greg fell on an escalator once, really cut his knee. It was quite nasty. You do need to take care. He wasn't with me. I wasn't looking after him. just had to put that in there.
But you know, there, there are differences.
I made an episode a, a public episode a couple of Fridays ago about nightmares. because somebody had sent me an email asking about nightmares and I said, well, yeah, I did an episode, a patron only one about nightmares. So I'll talk a little bit. I did a five minute episode that went out the, the, actually it went out today cuz we are recording it on the day that it went out.
And there's an accompanying hypnotherapy track to listen to, and it's gonna be about how to change things, change the shape of things, change the way things look into something else. It reminded me that I'm going to the Harry Potter studio tour on Sunday.
Oh, exciting.
My son's girlfriend has never been there before. I've been a couple of times when Billy was young. It's great. It's a lot of fun.
Can I come with you?
Oh, I'm afraid not. There's no room in the car. We are rammed. Cause I'm
I'll.
friend as well. you'd fit. I've got a big-ish boot, but I think there's a law. but, but it is for those that are, that, that, like the Harry Potter universe, there's a particular spell called the Riddikulus spell where you change something that you're frightened of into something else. And one of the characters, Neville Longbottom, remember him, he was frightened of Professor Snape.
So the Riddikulus spell turned him into a version of Professor Snape that's wearing his grandmother's clothes and looks silly and loses his power over him, loses that influence over the fear. And if you can change the the shape of something in your mind, that's a great way of training your brain that the thing that you thought had power over you actually is fine. And you can laugh about it and you can send it away. You can push it away. And to use our imagination like that is, is wonderful.
But when it comes to escalators, like you say, there is an element of care to be had. And that's okay to feel a little bit of something. And I'm not sure I'd use the, sort of changing the shape of something about escalators or heights and, and things like that. Looking down, I'm, I've had lots of clients over the years who have talked about escalators cuz there is that little bit, it's not like stairs, which, yeah, I don't like this. If I fell down those steps, I'm gonna hurt myself.
But The escalators are moving. There is that element of, oh, I've gotta step on that and I've got my bag and things. It just adds that little extra few percent onto the, I need to be cautious right now. Scale.
And they can be very, very high. And steep So, you know, there definitely is a little bit of a frisson sometimes with those, issues and there're sharp edges. So no, we wouldn't be wanting to change that into a fluffy cloud that takes you up into the sky or to laugh at it. And you know, there's a reason why there's signs at the airports, at train stations that say, if you've got bags, use the lift. because they know that sometimes it goes wrong.
I remember one time at St. Pancras they'd got a sign at the bottom of the lift saying how many accidents had been on the escalator.
I mean, I get it, but uh,
I think if you worked in one of those places, you'd be go, oh God, not again. It makes sense to take action. And so I would, I would say to anonymous, if you've got a big bag and you are a little bit nervous, use the lift . Yeah, just, just do. So avoidance sometimes makes a little bit of sense
Yeah. But what she's discovering I think is that, that what started with that then becomes, oh, I associate all that, all that feeling of, oh, I've got this big bag and if I let it go, it's gonna fall and knock somebody over another. All that bit of fear, she's plugged it into when it's actually, you only need to be on scale of two outta 10 on the cautious scale, but it feels like 10.
exactly. But I did feel it was important that we covered that before we got onto the, the, the, what she does about it. Now, earlier on I presume you knew what you were doing. It wasn't a coincidence. You were talking about the being the child inside us now one thing with this one from Anon she didn't say what she said seven years ago, and she's late thirties, so she was definitely an adult when this phobia began.
A lot, in fact, I would say the majority, although I don't have stats to back that up, but I'd say the majority of phobias start in childhood and those that do very often become more generalized. So the fact that this one started in adulthood would to me explain why it hasn't generalized to other experiences of heights because she had an experience on escalator its escalators.
With children it would very likely expand into other areas, but also for somebody who's experience started as a child, when they have their phobic reaction, they revert to the childlike state. They revert to where they were when it began.
It was triggered. Yeah.
So that is something to really be aware of. So anybody listening to this who has a phobia, have a little think if you know where it started. Now some people do and some people don't, and some people think they do, but they might be wrong. And that works out when they come for therapy. And in hypnosis, we'll often do a process called regression, which is to go back and look for and experience those initial sensitizing events.
Look at it from the adult perspective and see, oh, actually it wasn't that bad after all. Maybe I can leave it to one side, but see whether when you are in your phobic state, are you reverting to being a child. And if you are, that gives you a tool a little tool of say, right, no, I'm not a child. I'm going to stand on my grown up feet, put my big boy or girl pants on. And that could make a bit of difference. Could make a lot of difference.
Might make no difference at all, but it's worth a go at.
Yeah, absolutely. What anonymous is worried about is exactly what you picked up, which is if your foundations when you're younger are quite good, then you're probably gonna find that the phobia sticks with the one thing rather than spreads out into all things that are similar, and she doesn't wanna pass this on to her kids. She doesn't want to show and model fear about it. I've heard that story a few times before, or similar things
Yeah, I've heard it a lot. Yeah. Spiders. Oh, I don't want my children to be afraid of spiders. Just a another little story about heights. It was told at a conference in the States if somebody went along to the presenter for fear of heights. And it was Okay, so what, what are you, what are you scared of then? Are you, you scared of you know, being on a mountain? No. Jumping outta an airplane? No. You just went through a whole load of things and nothing was resonating.
It was just, I'm afraid of heights. . What? Well, if I'm in a tall building and I, I stand on the balcony and lean over the edge, I get, I get nervous. Well, well, don't
Don't do that. Yeah,
you're not supposed to. And then that ties into a client that I had who when I just said, well, you do realize that fear of heights is actually a fear of falling, don't you? And. Oh, oh, yes it is, isn't it? I mean, some people might say, no it isn't. But you know, in this case it worked. He said, yeah, it is. Oh, okay. I'm not going to fall, am I? Because I'm not gonna put myself in the position to fall, and neither is anonymous on escalator because she's taking care.
Hmm.
But that was all that that guy needed. was a recognition of, oh, I'm afraid of falling. Well, I'm not gonna fall. One of the things was in, in a bus on an Mediterranean island that's going up those twisty turn roads. Well, it's not gonna go over the edge. I mean, it happens occasionally, but it's so rare again, and that's another thing with phobias is to recognize the risk.
The difference between what is possible and what is probable.
Yep.
it's possible that you could lose control of yourself on the escalator and and fall or hurt yourself and hurt somebody else, or that your shoelaces will get caught in the mechanism and your foot will get pulled in. We gotta remember, the imagination has no limit. There is no ceiling to our imagination. If you can see it, you can be it, which is great if it's to help you achieve something that you want to improve upon. but if you can see it, you can feel it.
If you can see it in your mind, you can feel it in your body and it will feel real. What I think would be useful for anybody in a similar sort of position who've got a, a phobia of something that is actually relatively safe, like I do with treatment for nightmares, asking people to think about the things that their nightmares were about. Keep the story going. Don't end in your imagination on the fear. What happens next?
So you think about getting off the escalator at the bottom, you think and daydream and wonder about how it would be when everything's fine, because that is probable, that's far more likely to happen than something dangerous. And that's where some elements of C B T theory come in when, when the C B T approach is well, think about something else. Okay, well tell me what to think about. Well, that's what you think about. You think about the journey down the escalator being fine.
And the important thing is, and this is why phobia's hang around for as long as they do. Don't wait until you are about to step on the escalator before you think about this. By that point, you've already had lots of experiences in your head of them being dangerous. Think about it in advance. If this is an issue that you've had for in anonymous' case, seven years. Well imagine the work that could be done In far less than seven years.
If you spend a bit of time every day just thinking about how easy it is to use escalators, how you can trust yourself, how if you ever, you feel a feeling within your body that makes you feel stuck, that you can take a breath and take a step and you know how to use your body. You've used it for many years. You know how to take a step onto an escalator. You did it before all the way into your mid to late twenties. It was fine. So you know how to do it and you can trust yourself.
Well think about that. And that doesn't, you can go and see a therapist and especially a hypnotherapist who can help you with your imagination, but you can do this for yourself, but it needs to be done. You actually do need to schedule some time in your imagination. Sometimes just before you fall asleep maybe. Cause that's a nice time for daydreaming, or just before you get up or just whenever you remember.
, you think about using the escalator, but you think about the journey down, it being easy, safe, just with the correct safe level of caution, and you step off even if you've got a, a child that's holding your hand or a bag that you're holding or whatever, think about that and train your brain that you can be trusted. But that does take repetition, but you just gotta do it.
I'd like to add an extra level. Trust yourself to trust yourself.
Oh, that's a good point. Yeah.
Mm. Trust yourself to trust yourself. You know that you will take the adequate precautions, so you're not going to step onto an escalator with the issue shoelaces undone. You aren't going to let little children go on escalators unaided. I saw a thing I think it was just yesterday, suggesting that 17 seconds is the optimum time for thinking about something to encourage the next thought to be along the same lines. So, we all know that one thought follows another, follows another, follows another.
And I find myself just thinking of something and thinking, how on earth did I get here? And following it back, that's where I started.
I do a lot of that.
But yeah, it's, it can be great, good fun. But if you have a negative thought, it's likely to be followed by another negative followed by another negative? And so on. 17 seconds thinking about something really good. So 17 seconds would probably be a bit long for, well, I don't know how long it takes to go up an escalator but think about 17 seconds. It's gone smoothly really well. Everything's hunky dory. And then let your mind go onto the next thing, and it's likely to be another positive.
Hmm. No, I like that. Yeah. Yeah.
I'd also to add in something about evolution when we're discussing phobias.
Hmm.
Talked about needle phobia earlier, talked about heights. We haven't talked about flying, but let's talk about needles first. Until the introduction of vaccinations and I can't tell you when it was. I know it was Edward Jenner, but I can't tell you when that was. But it was a while ago. But not in terms of human evolution. It was not very long ago. Before that, there would've been no scenario where a sharp object penetrating the skin was a good thing.
With very few ex. The only exception I can think of would be cultures that did a lot of tattoos, and even then, it's still quite recent in the, in the a hundred thousand, even in, well, I mean we've been kicking around on this planet in one shape or formed for a million years. Let alone the last, maybe the tattoo stuff that's probably only in the last 5,000, maybe less years. So yeah, blink of an eye, penetrating the skin has always been a bad thing.
I don't know about that with tattoos, but I would imagine that some of that was quite dangerous cuz it wouldn't have been sterile.
Mm. Yeah.
So even then, I'm not convinced that it would, to the unconscious mind have seemed like a safe thing.
Yeah.
So generally speaking a sharp object, penetrating the skin. Not good.
Equals bad. Yeah.
If this is an issue for you, talk to your unconscious mind and explain cuz that that part that's been evolving for millions of years likely hasn't caught up. Then if we look at fear of heights, and I'll link that to fear of flying. Again until, well, I mean, the first flight was in 19.
The Wright brothers, if not was in really close, very close to the first World War, and then suddenly we're in the air
like that. So again, very, very recently in evolutionary terms that before that, if you were not on the ground, you were either jumping in which case you're not off the ground for very long. Even if you are a world champion, long jumper or high jumper, you are not off the ground very long if you are jumping. They wouldn't have had trampolines in those days. Even then, it's not very long. The only other time you'd be if you're falling and falling isn't good.
So again, you can help your unconscious mind to recognize that in terms of heights, well, A, it's that fear of falling. You're not gonna fall because you can trust yourself to trust yourself, to not put yourself in the position where you're gonna fall.
Yeah.
And if you're in a plane, it's different because yes, you're not on the ground, but they know what they're doing and planes know what they're doing. I dunno how they do it, but it's
no, I, I don't need to know. Yeah, I can trust the pilot. I mean, what, what am I gonna do? Take control of the plane. Nah, I'll let you do that, mate. , I've tried to fly a plane, a little small plane somebody took me up in once. Yeah, it's complicated. I mean, I know it's very different. A lot of computers that do all the, keeping it steady. But yeah, you try and do it manually and yeah, it's, Richard, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm struggling, is what I'm doing.
It's you do it . And it was a lot of fun. And although I was excited about trying to fly that plane up high, looking outta the window going, wow, this is incredible. I trusted that the guy I was with who was the pilot, if I was doing something dangerous, he'd step in. I trusted him .And I think we do need to trust. Sometimes other people with some phobias, but certainly to trust ourselves, like you say, our unconscious mind is trying to protect us, and that's what emotions are for.
Well, at least that's what negative emotions are for. That's what anxiety's for. It's your unconscious mind saying, I, I don't like this. This, this is dangerous. Here. Here's a feeling to remind you that it's dangerous. Like you say, talk to it. Say thank you. Thank you for looking out for me. I can be trusted, depending on the term, whatever works for you.
Sometimes you might need to say, I can trust myself, but for others it's, it's as if their unconscious mind is another version of them just sitting in, sitting in their brain going watch out. You can trust me. I'm only gonna put myself in safe positions. You can trust me or I can trust me. Whatever works for you. And I know we've used that phrase before, talk to your unconscious mind. That isn't a complicated thing to do.
You don't have to necessarily induce some hypnotic trance in yourself in order to be communicating with the unconscious mind. Your unconscious mind is always listening. Yes. It can be more beneficial to do it in a relaxed space where you have settled your mind down a little bit and you are, you are, you're more focused. But it doesn't have to be, it is literally sometimes just talking to yourself and that's just positive self talk. That's nothing new or unusual. That's useful.
You do need to be able to set up something that your unconscious can talk back,
Hmm. Yeah.
so that's important that you can listen to your unconscious as well. Just one final thing Sometimes people can't find easily the cause of a phobia. And it can be that it's a symbolic connection that your unconscious has made, linking the object of your phobia with something else that causes emotional distress.
Yeah.
if you're struggling to, you know, I've, I've got a fear of dogs, but I've never had a problem with a dog, then that is where you probably would need to go to a hypnotherapist to help you encourage your unconscious to reveal what that symbolic connection it's making is. Then resolve that.
Yeah. because especially when we are quite young, we do move from one thing onto another. When we are little and we've never seen a dog. When we do see one, we just think it moves. So it's a creature. So it's, it's another human. Oh, it's a human that's on four legs. Oh, that's different. Okay. And then if we go to the zoo and we see an elephant, we go, oh, that's a big grey dog with bigger ears.
Well, no, it's an elephant, but you don't have that compartment in your brain when you're quite young, six months old, 18 months old. You, you, you are working things out. And that process carries on to a degree throughout our entire life where we do jump from one thing to another. Somebody might have a phobia of Christmas lights because they twinkle.
And actually what we've got a phobia of is being sick because when they were six, they got a migraine and all they saw were all these flashing lights in their vision. And then they threw up cause they had a migraine and then mom got cross cuz they'd met a mess of the duvet. And it's nothing to do with twinkling lights at all, who knows. But yeah, it's definitely worth doing some exploratory stuff.
That just reminded me of when Jack was little, I'm talking about when he was about three, he was afraid of dogs. And I do not know what caused that, but he, he was, . He's not, now he's got one and adores them. But he was, and we were in a market in France walking along and suddenly there in front of us was this huge fluffy dog. I think they're called a Chow Chow, something like that. And there was no time for me to do anything except sort of in my head, go, oh, crikey.
And Jack just took one look. Looked up at me and said, Hmm. Probably a bear.
That's wonderful. Of course, he'd got no phobia of bears.
No phobia of bears. No, not a problem at all.
I think it's good to have a phobia of bears, . If, if it's, if you're wandering around and there's a bear, Yeah. Be
if there's a bear just wandering around, not, good. We still use the phrase, you know, we see a fluffy dog and we just go, Hmm. Probably a bear
Oh, that's lovely. Oh, I can't wait to see him. I'll be mentioning that, right? We'd better love them and leave them. Fiona. Hey, Merry Christmas to everybody. Of course, if you're listening to this when comes out, Yeah, it's gonna be Christmas day, a couple of days. Ho, ho, ho. I hope Santa visits you. Why do we put on that voice? Who was the first person to go? Ho, ho, ho. Because it wasn't St. Nicholas with his dowry for those sex workers, which is where it all starts. Bizarre story.
Google that. Did you know about that?
I did not know that. I know the red, red and white thing comes from Coca-Cola, but I didn't know that St. Nicholas was giving dowry's to sex workers.
Yeah. It was this one guy who got these daughters and didn't have enough money for a dowry so they were gonna have to become sex workers, and he put some money in their shoes and that over the generations became socks, stockings. And ho ho hos Oh, no. Ho. Ah, I never thought of that. Ho, ho, ho. He had three daughters. Oh God.
Now, you know the origin
Oh, I mean, correlation does not imply causation. There's definitely a, oh, I'm definitely reading into that
Yes. That was definitely not the cause.
Anyway, on that note, Have a lovely Christmas week and we'll be back next week, . Take care everybody. Bye.
Bye.