So the fourth anniversary of the Parkland school shooting actually just passed and Parkland survivors as well as the families and parents of victims are speaking out because They haven't seen the action that was promised to them by Joe Biden on the campaign trail now in an interview with CNN David Hogg among others were talking about the Specific things that Biden can do by himself Without abolishing the filibuster that he has yet to do and they just launched a website called shock market Which basically tracks every single gun death that took place since Biden has taken office so they're trying to exert pressure on him and This is really important here because it shows you that there are very small Almost insignificant seemingly things that Biden can do and he won't even do the bare minimum So watch as David Hogg breaks it down here I think one of the things that I've thought about in this time is one of the first interviews that I had in the wake of the shooting Which was actually I believe on this show Just about four years ago and on that one of the things that I remember most distinctly from that in the time Since watching it is when I said I was asked by the reporter, you know, what do you want to say to politicians? And I said we're the kids You're the adults. You need to do something It's four years later, and I'm 21 years old and I'm an adult We need to do something and frankly President Biden needs to do something because there are certain things that he's leaving on the table That he can do right now like creating a national office of gun violence prevention and a national director of gun violence prevention and creating a comprehensive plan to dramatically reduce gun deaths before the state of the Union that he can do right now Regardless of the filibuster and regardless of what's going on in the Senate. So Igor Why isn't that happening? Do you think I don't know you have to ask the president you have to ask this Administration because as you know, they ran one of the most comprehensive plans to reduce gun violence President Biden made personal promises to Patricia to Manuel to David that this would be a top priority for him And the fact that they haven't done everything and anything in their power is unacceptable Absolutely unacceptable. So I feel like David Hogg is being extremely Reasonable here. He knows that there are limitations to what you can't accomplish via executive power But what he's asking for this is incredibly reasonable almost too reasonable in my opinion He wants to create a national office for gun violence prevention along with a director for gun violence Prevention and he wants a comprehensive plan as to how Biden's administration can reduce gun deaths plan and an office That's it. I'd argue that those Asks are essentially lip service But what's crazy is Biden won't even do that. He won't even do the bare minimum, of course He hasn't been pushing for legislation Because you know, he's not strong enough to stand up to people in his own party who refused to abolish the filibuster But he won't even do what he can do with his pen and that's a problem now Cam Kasky was even more explicit and other parkland survivor who didn't mince words He's really frustrated with Joe Biden He wrote on Twitter four years ago today when I was hiding in a packed classroom Wondering if the next person coming through the door would shoot us all I genuinely thought to myself that if Donald Trump wasn't president would be able to fix all this Learned my lesson. Biden's not doing it either. So this is a giant betrayal Trump was president when the parkland shooting happened and Democrats at least paid lip service to the idea that they were going to take action and now When they have power, I mean They're not even doing the bare minimum all that they're asking for is an office of gun prevention and a director for that position. That's nothing and a plan and They're not even getting that. I mean, how could you not see why they're frustrated? But of course liberals actually attacked Cam Kasky because he dared to criticize the Democratic Party and the implication is that if you Criticized Joe Biden then by default you're essentially tacitly endorsing the Republican Party But his response to this was just perfect. So he tweeted out Biden fans when I criticized the administration He's just trying to make the GOP look good literally Joe Biden last week Mitch McConnell is a man of honor Yeah, checkmate liberals unironically. So I mean, it's just ridiculous to think that it's Not acceptable for anyone to criticize Joe Biden because the GOP is so bad I mean, you're letting them off the hook when these are easy things that Biden can do at what point do loyalists within the Democratic Party ever Put the burden on the Democratic Party at what point do they say, you know what? Maybe they're failing us Maybe it's not that young people are failing them Maybe the Democratic Party establishment and their leadership is failing us, but that'll never be the case Now Cam Kasky was interviewed by MIDI Hassan on MSNBC And he kind of further elaborated about why he and his generation entirely are just disillusioned by the Biden administration Last week President Biden was talking tough about the second amendment. Have a listen There's no amendment. It's absolute when the amendment was passed It didn't say anybody can own a gun and any kind of gun and any kind of weapon You couldn't buy a cannon and when the this amendment was passed And so no reason why I should be able to buy certain assault weapons But now Biden was scorched by the pro-gun right for those comments But although he's been painted as a gun grabber on the right as you point out There's been no major movement on major gun reform. There was a bill passed in the house It died in the Senate like every other bill. I wonder what are you know, you said we were young four years ago You're still young Cameron What are young people feeling when they put a lot of their energy into getting Democrats to the White House a Majority in both chambers of Congress even if narrow in the Senate, but you don't get Crucial issues like gun control out of it. How do you keep motivating people to keep voting? Well, it's crazy because it's not only Us not getting the major sweeping reform that not only young people with people across the board you want We're not getting the basic stuff. We're not getting Biden's campaign promises that can't be stopped in the Senate We're not getting the national director of gun violence prevention that he said he would appoint on the campaign Which you can't blame cinema and mansion on that one and I love blaming cinema good point stuff They are the I love talking about how they how they ruin everything, but Biden can do that with the stroke of a pen so Look beyond gun control measures He made a lot of promises about student student loan debt and then it came out and Treated it like the people who need help with their student loans or a bunch of rich kids going to Princeton From wealthy families, right? Yeah, but Biden is making no friends in my generation and mind you the concept of anyone in my generation Supporting a conservative is completely absurd to me, but Biden's not Biden's not doing anything to win the young people over and we're tired.  It's truly just It's so predictable.   I do want to Go to one comment that camp said there he said and look I'm gonna keep on voting blue But it's getting less fun every time see I don't think you should say this because they don't give a shit If you're having fun when you vote for them, they just scared that you vote for them Now I'm not saying that you know We should just allow Republicans to win but what I do want the left to do is be a little bit more savvy in making threats to The Democratic Party establishment. I've been saying this consistently so back in 2016 when the DOC DNC was trying to sabotage Bernie Sanders I think that Bernie Sanders should have threatened it to run as a third-party candidate in the general election Now I wouldn't have expected him to do that and I wouldn't have supported any Spoiler effect that would have led to Donald Trump getting elected But still if you kind of puff up your chest and you talk a big game, perhaps you scare them a little bit, right? And you know, I saw these interviews from the Iowa caucus where you had young people show up to support Bernie Sanders Enthusiastically and I remember it was either a CNN or an MSNBC anchor Asking this group of young people. Well, if Bernie Sanders isn't the nominee Would you still support the person who is and they're like, oh, of course So, you know, if you're gonna do that keep it to yourself As much as you can and don't show your cards until the last minute because the Democratic Party Needs to acknowledge that when you say that you're going to still vote for Democrats, even though it's becoming less fun they they get this False sense of security, right? They think okay.   So it's time to vote third party again, right? Well, look, I voted third party in the past I kind of you know mixed in match between voting Democrat and voting third party The problem is that the people who say you have to vote third party They don't actually try to push through the reforms that would make third parties electorally viable. I mean, I have been consistent about this I've been pushing for a legislation like HR 4000 which would actually lead to Proportional representation or at least more proportional representation range choice voting and nobody wants to talk about electoral reform If you want third parties to be viable, you have to push for electoral reform first Otherwise, you're never going to get past these two party systems And I think it's a bit of an oversimplification to say that the totality of our issues is that we just have two parties That are both the same or largely the same which I don't agree with but I mean Two parties that are both economically conservative The problem is that you know if we get a fourth party or a fifth party and we have multiple parties We still live in a late-stage capitalist system and those parties are just as susceptible to corruption as the Democratic Party and Republican Party is So, you know unless you tackle the root causes that is Driving this instability driving, you know, this commodification of every aspect of our lives and that is capitalism Then there's going to be no change and how do you attack capitalism? How do you try to?  I mean, I'm not saying that I have you know a crystal or not a crystal ball a magic wand and you Could just fix it like that by snapping your fingers But unless you have someone who's willing to fight to just try to deliver for the working class You're gonna be stuck in this situation. So the Democratic Party will continue to fail people fail working class voters people of color Marginalized communities and then when they fuck up and when young people and and marginalized people point this out Democratic Party loyalists will always point the finger and blame you when they inevitably lose It's just a vicious cycle and at a minimum the best we can do is acknowledge it But try to push for someone to get elected that actually cares and we could start by electing folks like Jessica Snarrows and Nina Turner. I mean them getting elected wouldn't be the end all be all right No one politician is a panacea But the point is we keep fighting because when you actually give up and tune out That's when they officially are victorious. That's when they win because notice that the establishment They absolutely want nothing more than for you to tune out and just check out of politics and just ignore it That's a victory to the ruling class, but the fact is even if we're not successful.  I mean you we just can't afford to tune out and even if Resistance is futile and nothing seems likely to change The point is we keep going because if we do go down then at least we go down fighting and I'll leave that there


What's the best tool to use for creating graphics for moodle courses or courses that you're producing to teach online? I'm going to show you a brilliant technology. It's free and it allows you to make graphics for banners, for titles for the different units of your course and even lines which I use to divide the different parts of my course up. It's a free tool. It's really useful. It's lovely to use and I'm going to take you through a whole range of different activities. Really hope you liked the video and as always if you do please like it, please share it with other teachers, please comment on it and if you really like it please join me on my YouTube channel. Let's get started. So the sorts of things I'm talking about are things like these images here which is what we call thumbnails in YouTube or for example these kind of banners that you might put at the top of the course or for example the banners that I create for each unit of my course. So this is the tool photop.com. It's completely free. I'm going to start by showing you some super simple examples. I will show you slightly more complicated ones a bit later but let's do something really simple just to show you how to create a banner. I'm going to click on project and then what I do is I'm going to choose the type of banner that I want to create and what I'm going to do first of all is do a banner that I often put at the top of my courses when I'm working with mood and stuff like that. So I can just choose a size. I'm going to go for leaderboard. Then I just double click on any of the images and it will open up onto the screen and now it's ready to edit. So you have to put up with the adverts there on the right hand side but this side is completely free. They never ask you for any money and if you look here you'll see that this image is made up of layers. It's like Photoshop. It's actually quite sophisticated. Now the first thing we're going to do is I'm just going to come in a little bit closer just so that you can see a little bit better and if we notice here we've got this baby don't hurt me and I'm just going to click on that and right click that layer and delete that layer completely.  In fact what I can do if I click on the layers just double click on the screen on the text and I'm going to delete that and I'm going to write Russell Stanard. I've probably zoomed in a bit too closer. Let me just come out a little bit. Zoom out a little bit so you can see it okay and straight away I've now updated that and I've put my imagine this is going to be a banner for example for my website or it could be anything if I just again if I click here then double click on the screen if I wanted to call this for example unit one yeah of my course then I've simply made that banner so it's that simple to do. Always make sure that you've clicked on the on the layer that you want and then just double click on the screen to text. Now the other thing is just to notice this as well if you click off the text and click on the move tool you could just grab that now and move it. See because this is a layer of this image then you can actually as long as you've got that layer and you're on the move tool you can actually move it around everywhere so that is how simple I could create a nice unit introduction and then all I would do is click on file and then come down to export as I'm going to export this as a jpeg for example I give it a title so I'm going to call this my course banner or unit banner so I'm a unit one banner and then I simply just click on save that will be saved in my download so I need to go to my downloads to actually find that image there it is and now I could use it so if I clicked on my downloads just to open up my computer for a minute come to my downloads then that image will be at the top unit one banner. You can just see how much I used this technology actually you can see here I've been working with it in the last few days and you can even see down here I'm always making banners and images for different things. Okay so that was a really simplistic idea of how you could use photope I'm going to show you something more sophisticated now we're going to start working with the layers I'm going to add text and I'm going to build it up and bring in pictures and I'm going to bring in more pictures and I'm really going to kind of build this whole thing up just incidentally if you are looking to learn more about moodle and how you would then put those images into moodle there's a video on the screen now that will take you through working with moodle and give you some really useful design tips on using moodle but let's move on now to the next part of the video so I'm going to show you some more sophisticated ideas now working with photope so that you can start to see some of the more things that you can do with it so let's start with a couple of ideas so I'm going to click on new project again again I'm going to come down and choose ads now what I'm going to do here is actually produce the header that we often have at the top of the course so not for the separate units but at the top of the course so a good size for this one can often be to use what we call billboard or large leaderboard okay or leaderboard they work really well I'm going to do large leaderboard let's do billboard simply because it makes it clearer so we'll click on that one now we get again loads of images quickly scroll down and find the one that you want okay one that I often I mean any of these will do a lot of them are nice because they don't have images and perhaps you don't want to work with images you can actually click here and just choose the ones that haven't got images in another one that's quite nice for courses if you scroll down that I use quite a lot is this one here it's quite a long way down it's this one here so I'm going to click on it so again just click once and it will open up now remember we've got this text here and we've also got this other layer now sometimes you do want the other layer so what I'm going to do in this time is click on the first layer first I'm going to double click on the screen and I'm just going to change this to to moodle course alright so let's imagine I'm actually building a whole course using moodle now I'm going to select that with the mouse okay select it with the mouse I'm going to increase the size slightly so I'm going to make that a little bit bigger don't worry that it's covering up everything else click on the move tool and then I'm going to shift that over to this side now I've got this other text so I'm going to click on here I'm going to double click on the screen I'm going to change that to Russell Stanard since I'm the tutor on the course and this time again I'm going to just select that remember you've got it selected you've got that layer selected it's the great thing about photopy so just hold your mouse down select it and again what I can do now is increase the size of that and I could if I wanted to even click here and change it to another font I'm not going to do that I'm quite happy again I'm going to click on here now and then I'm just going to put that underneath so really quickly there I've just produced a nice banner but this time I've used two layers now just to make a point here if you wanted to add another layer of text you can click on the text tool click on the screen and immediately you'll notice that a new layer is created now if I wanted to add something else here let's say it was the name of the university so whatever university or college or whatever you could add the university name then click on there and then put that somewhere else on the screen okay so immediately you've made a lovely banner for your course really really quickly and of course the last thing you need to do file and export as export it as a jpeg or a png jpegs are slightly smaller so click on jpeg remember to give it a name so I'm just going to call this top banner and remember also when you click on save that that will be saved in your downloads and there is our image and of course I can access it from my downloads so now we're going to focus on working with our own pictures or working with pictures that you've extracted from google and if you want to learn how to legally take pictures from google watch the video that's on the screen now otherwise I'm going to show you how to use pictures with photopea so let's go to another level this time what we're going to do is we're actually going to open up our own picture so I'm going to click on open from computer now I've got lots of pictures here that I've actually paid for or make sure that you use images that are on the internet that have got a creative commons license okay or anywhere where you can get images that are kind of creative commons free so you are able to use them I'm going to click for example on this image here let's work with this image in fact let's work with this image here quite like this one so I'm just going to click here and open that image onto the screen now this image is too big but watch this I can click here on the crop tool and then what I want to do is click on free crop and now what I can do is I could kind of move this tool move this and then move this and kind of crop it so I've got a completely different image now if I'm happy with that just click on the tick and now I've got a completely different image okay I can resize the image afterwards if I want to now as I showed you in the last video what I can do now is click on text click on the screen now I might want to change this so I'm going to for example use kind of a white text and I can also if I want to even change the font that I'm using etc I'm quite happy with this I'm just going to put here moodle course I don't know why it came out red I made a mistake now I just have to change it but I'll do it afterwards moodle course with rustle standard don't worry about the fact that the words are going off the screen because I can click on here move it onto the screen where I want it let's say down here double click again on the screen I'm going to change that just make sure that I've chosen white and I know I didn't do I didn't click on okay now if we click back on the move tool so we deselect the text now we can see and we can kind of place it where we like I might put it over there okay again if I double click on the screen I can always increase the size of it change the font etc to change the font just click here you've got all sorts of fonts that you could work with okay so if I for example let's say what's just change this one here and then it will completely change but you notice it's now really big so you would then probably need to resize it down a little bit again you could use the move tool to move it so that would be another possibility I want to make sure it's nice and clear and then again when you want to just you know click on the move tool and that will and then allow you to move it and there we are you've got the image you want and of course what you would do then is go file and export as and again save it as either a png or jpeg and then you can make access make use of it remember you could always add more layers so if again you wanted to have I don't know the title of the university you could come down here and click again on text click on the screen immediately adds another layer and then let's say you know university name and again you could then place that somewhere else on the screen use the move tool move that wherever you want it to be and of course if you wanted to you could change the font of that as well put it back to anything else and remember to move the move tool might help to decide where you want to place it okay just a matter of playing around I love these layers once you get used to them you'll see that they can really help you because of course you could do the same if you wanted to add another image as well so I have two images though normally with a banner I think one's enough just a really quick break from the video I hope you're enjoying the video and if you are please come over to teachertrainingvideos.com loads more free videos that you can access you can also find out about all my courses they're always advertised on the opening page and please sign up to the newsletter if you sign up to the newsletter you get updated with all the blog posts the webinars the online courses and the videos and at the moment if you sign up there is a 12 part free video course in using technology in teaching and I send you a video about every five days let's get back to the video here we can see a Moodle course that I'm currently developing and you'll notice again that I've used photopeed to make these banners at the top of each of the units of my course but another thing I like to do is have these nice thick red lines that kind of show where the course or the unit starts and ends and I'm going to quickly show you now how I do that working with photopeed when you're working with photopeed you're not actually forced to only use templates you can do anything from your computer etc what I'm going to do is just click on new project and show you another little idea and in this case what I'm going to do is simply have a black line so in fact we'll make it a red line and I'm not going to choose any of the templates I'm simply going to say width 120 but the height here I want the height to only be sorry 1280 and the height I want to be just 15 so I'm going to make a nice long line and maybe might be too long I'm going to set it to 800 so I'm just changing the width simple as that very simple and I'm going to change the color I'm going to click here because I like a red line so I'm going to click on that so I've now chosen red I'm going to click on okay and now all I need to do is click on create and the red line is created it's that simple using photopeed to make these kind of quick images lines that I often use when creating a course again you would now just need to save that so again click on export as export it give it a name don't forget to name it and then click on save and that will then be saved as a line that you can then download and make use of and it'll be of course in your downloads really hoped you liked that video please come over to teachertrainingvideos.com loads more free content and you can see all of my courses on the opening page don't forget to sign up to the newsletter that way you get updated with all the latest blog posts the webinars the latest videos and the courses of course you can subscribe to my youtube channel don't forget to click on the bell that way you'll get all the updates and finally if you do want to contact me perhaps about doing a conference or doing some training with your organization you can contact me from the website thank you very much on the screen now there are some more videos that you might find useful all connected to working with Moodle and designing online courses


Fy Quärtyn i chi! A gynhydd chi'n gweithio'r gwaith Cres-Baker, y cysbeth Cres-Boyn Iann! Felly wedi ei gwaith, gallwch chi ddech chi, ae, rwy'n gweithio. Rhaid yw'r gilydd, mae'n olygu swyddwyr yma'n cyffredin, felly mae'n edrych i chi ddim oherwydd gilydd arfer, gofyd a'i bwyd at Diwrnodnaeth, felly mae'n wneud ardweud o'r cyfrwyng, beth oherwydd sy'n gwneud i chi gynnal amersiaid, gallwn i chi'n ddim oedd iawn i'r ffordd gannig am y cyfrwyng. Mae'r ffordd sy'n gychwyn i chi'r ffordd i chi'n ddechrau, gweld i chi'n gwrdd cyniol, felly mae'n gwneud i chi'n ffordd i chi'n gwrdd swyddwyr, ond instagram wedi'i gilydd y peth o'r hyn. Rydyn ni'n fawr o a ddefnyddio i Krishna fair oes yn gweithio'n gweithio'r diref. Ma'n gwneud yn cael eu bod y company..... Mae oedd eich wneud yn cael ei ffordd. ..beithio'n ddifor i chi... Mae angen i chi nhw i whatch chi'n gwael. Mae hyn yn cael eu bod hyn o'r cyffredinol. Felly roedd efallai'r ddaeth diddor yn oed a oedd gwaed i chi'n gweithio. Mae'n cyffredinol ar fy mod i chi. Felly oed ddaa yn ymddug. The nice lady at the end of her landing on the block that used to let me in and give me sweets and play with her.  The caretaker's moving funny. The whole neighborhood changed because he was televised and they'd seen him and obviously didn't agree with what he'd done. I was instantly rejected and I felt shamed. Then it was just like this woman's chasing me and I didn't get it. I kind of pushed my mum away and she was trying to comfort me and went out and played out in the street and got commended for the way I was acting. It's like yeah come here and then negative emotions I'm feeling. I'm getting kind of hugged from the streets and that's where it started. I found a belonging or some form of where I should be or a purpose that I felt or some misguided belief of what I should be doing. What age were you when you started getting into trouble? I would say it started from then so about 10 I would go out and start being more mischievous and like more angry and negative emotions. But first actual fence I think I got down as 12. But it started from then. Is that you trying to get the not the gratification but feel part of something because your dad was missing again? Yeah I felt like that's where I could get my validation and it's what I'd seen him doing. It's about how I'd not so much respect but like feel that belonging because I didn't feel like I was worthy or whatever. I just was going out and just my mum's I was just not listening to her and she was kind of she felt guilty and look what position he put her in. So renders position to be put in as a parent like having to break that to your son because of his behaviour and I have empathy for that. But she never punished me because she felt guilty for that. So anything I'd done even at school if I'd get chucked out I'd come home and there would be. I knew I wouldn't get punished for my behaviour because she'd feel like it's she'd feel responsible for his what he's done. So that was sort of free passes though to then cause me him. I knew that as well and yeah she tried but it wouldn't she would never stick to it because it would be guilt and I was good at playing on it. And yeah it was I knew that I could do what I wanted like in a sense and yeah my the way I looked at things was just not proactive. It was totally believing that everything I was doing or behave that way is the way to be and this is going to make me a man or what like my dad would behave. I spoke to enough people now when you see the behavioural patterns you see the trauma responses to everything they're doing coming from the broken home. How much that affects kids, male and female it's scary I think. Someone I had on says that over 70% of people in prison are from broken homes. Yeah I've read studies myself adverse childhood experiences there's 80% of prisoners in the UK that I've got that one or more. And then there's like 48% I've got four or more because there's a there's a scale of 10. There's 10 questions like you've got a parent that's abused you or gone to prison or domestic violence or parent with mental health issues. And if you've got a score of up to like six or whatever there's more significant impacts. And yeah in the prison now at least 80% of one or more which is crazy because you can go to prison now and you don't even get asked about it. And they will just say to you if you've got substance problems they'll be like doing substance misuse course. But that's like looking at the leaves but not the root because in prison it's stress free isn't it?  There's no like out here to be a man and to be doing something positive it takes a lot and it's hard and it's hard working. And you're going to get knockbacks and but in prison there's none of that. So when you've got them issues you do this awareness course you come out back into reality and then stress is here and you're back on the substances. I think that's why I want to share my journey I want to explain. So I want people to be looking more at the impacts of this trauma in prisons. So then we can reduce the offending rates and use this as an example if it resonates with people that's that's that's what I want. Did your mum was she worried that you'd have went down the same footsteps as your dad? Yes she was petrified. How many times she sat me down and had these conversations but it just went in one ear and out the other because what I did is I demonised the good and I glorified the bad in my head and that's how I looked at the world. Like being bad is good and being good is bad and it was just yeah that didn't resonate what she'd say.  Yeah I started smoking weed. I just think that's a go to drug for everybody, for everybody from the streets anyway.   I don't know it's like the gateway drug isn't it? It's like we started a weed and you build yourself up I don't know. For me it was just like I suppose again everyone was doing it it's part of like yeah let's try it and I don't know why I went to it but it's always the one that everyone starts with.  When was the first time you went to prison? Did you ever get jobs or anything beforehand? After my school I got chucked out of three different secondary schools. What for? I was just not able to have the courage if they asked me to do something because I was so fearful of rejection or people laughing I would abuse a teacher or be rude or maybe fight people fighting. I would always get chucked out for my behaviour because I couldn't have the confidence to stand up and read or whatever they would say. No not even I can read well but it's just that I didn't want people to judge me or stand up in that like I don't know it was a major fear that when they asked me to do something I'd be like no.   Are you bullied? No I'm not bullied. I think people would say things because I'm just quiet and then it would be yeah and then I would like go angry because I couldn't control my emotions but yeah like I was quiet and the quiet ones obviously people think that's a weakness before. Were you doing draw buddies in that beforehand? Not at that age it started more like 15, 14 that started yeah. Stealing? Shoplifting?  When was the first time you got proper and trouble though present at that age? I wouldn't even call it proper like I'd done more crimes between them because I'd moved from Enfield to Chesent now and I started like robbing all the dealers in Chesent because I thought that was cool me and my guys would come get the people in Chesent and I'd set them up and we'd take all their drugs and things like this year and then I refused to do a probation. They told me I've got to do some what's it called community service and I said no I'm not doing that and then they put me in prison for like 12 weeks to 6 the first ever time. I was like 20 that was the first time I ever went to prison. What was that like? It's easy on that? Not at first if anyone says that I don't know maybe that's for them but in that sweat box when you're pulling up it's the unknown like I don't know what's going to be in here I don't know who I'm going to see that I've done a wrong into. They're going to be patterned on the wing and nice and I'm landing in their thing and it's going to be on. You don't know what you're to expect but once you get in there then it's easy like I say there's no stresses in prison. You've got no there's no nothing you've got to worry about nothing. Obviously your family and you think but when you're in prison you only really think about yourself like I'm doing the time but actually it's your family that impacted but you don't have the stress of life when you're in there because just everything is just a supply for you. You don't have to do nothing.  There's a lot of weak links in the jail and once I went through the gates by Linnie and then once I went in and met people straight away from Porcel where I was from and I thought it was the Billy Big Bulls. So that's wagging about and it's like yeah on the street you're in like a patch and we're in prison.  That's when it escalates because you come in and you think is that the worst they can give me right and you go back out and then I was just active like I remember we went to go and do a deal at his house and we had to smash the front window climb through the window then we're in the house and he's got a knife and then I'm attending I've got a knife because I didn't and he's rocked it. Luckily there was three of us and then we just took all the drugs and now we're doing all these mad aggravated burglies for drugs and it's reckless because now you know you've been to prison and the worst they can do is this and I don't know I was just trying to prove that in some misguided way that I'm something.  It was like really traumatic because and we're sitting there drinking and then I went left on the bike my friends and don't go on the bike and I ended up driving the bike got to where I was going and someone else called me and I went there and as I left them. That's when the blue lights come behind me and I just tried to leave them come to the bend too fast in Cheddon and then I started snaking and I just went through this wooden fence thing. Into a 16 foot ditch down the helmet come off I hit my head and I'm looking up and it's like a police officer that I actually know from school and I'm like in the ditch and my arms are open fracture and yeah and all I remember is them bringing me up on a stretch out of the fireman and the police officer said I need his blood he may have been drinking and all this and like the next thing I woke up in a hospital. With like 10 broken ribs, punched lungs, shattered scapula, broken pelvis, broke breaks in my back. I pulled the nose out of the spine here for this arm.  Because I'm living that I'm in now I'm having to deal with the fact that my arms you know it was there but it's in a sling and the emotions that were going through me feeling sorry for myself and then they come to me and say we're going to have to amputate it because it's got sepsis and I pointed out I wanted to just bear with it. I was letting out and they had to because they said if you don't sign your mum will have to and yeah it was yeah that was probably the, it weren't in our heart moment like what I turned but it was the hardest thing I had to deal with yeah.  I was right handed yeah.   That's the only way I'll be thinking what? Like a stranger in Britain.  I was saying that but they weren't going to let me.  I hated myself I was less confident I was insecure and I was more like I'd carried knives before but I'd never stabbed no one but at that point in my life it was like I needed that because I'm still well first of all I was in my house for two years but like after that I'm still like I needed that weapon because I'm in that life with nothing I've got one arm and I'm extremely vulnerable and I know that.  So see that night your friend has lost his missies and then the same night you've crashed and nearly died as well. Yeah it was crazy.  Yeah that's all the police said then I'm in a wheelchair right because at first I was bed bound for weeks I was in hospital six months. I'm in a wheelchair and I'm one arm I'm going around in circles James. I'm going around in circles James. They roll up to the hospital right and they're talking about we're going to nick you for drink driving on a ban all this whatever it is.  And they did go to court for it in the end and the judge was like to me I can never punish you more than you punish yourself and I want to see you again.   Do you know what I mean?  Did you ever think about that?   I'll keep him on the streets. I'll keep him off the streets. Not to about 20 seconds ago. Because I know where you could have saved them. I was begging them. I was begging them. They took like things out of my leg and I don't know what exactly. I can't remember. They put something in the arm and they was trying to save it. They were operating for 12 hours when I got there. They wanted to airlift me to Royal Free but I was too critical. So they tried. That's what they told me. But to be honest, I don't know if I was in a better hospital. Maybe it would have got saved. Chase Farm wasn't the greatest. I don't know but it ended up being like I think I've seen someone say before. Like your worst nightmare.  And it actually ended up in the end helping me change and growing from it. Yeah but don't know surgeons and that. Don't they do some amazing jobs to see it. For me, I don't. But Tharmysutocondustru is a different story and a different topic we can touch on. But for the surgeons and these people who do amputations and saving lives and taking other bits from your arms and legs to keep you alive. The work that those people do is unbelievable. That we need those people and like I say, it's scary at the time but they've still saved your life at the time.  We're in the coma as well.  Not a head injury sorry.  And then everyone's waiting to see if I know anyone when I come around and that's when I said to Bill get me a drink because I've had tubes in my mouth for two weeks and he's like everyone's just started crying because they understood then at least he's not going to be. I think the arm was gone then but they just didn't want me to wake up with no arm, can't move in a bed and not sure if I'm going to be able to walk. It would be too much emotionally I think because the arm's stunk man. Honestly you could smell it James. It was like you left gone my food for time. It was just like rotting. It was just dead. It was there. It was lifeless. You just have metal over it. You could tell they weren't ever going to save it but I was still hopeful I suppose. It's mad doing that. What was the coma like?  I didn't remember none of that. I just remember when I come out of it. I don't remember. From when I got in the ambulance I think I lost consciousness then. I lost a lot of blood. I had a lot of blood transfusions. So yeah I don't remember that all I remember is up to going in the ambulance him asking for the blood then waking up out of the coma. Did you just have a pair of jeans on t-shirt? Yeah a jeans. None of the stuff? None of the equipment? No nothing man. That's a big man act.    I was in jeans as well. I never wore the stuff. I never considered crashing. You don't think like that. So how did the coppers chasing you when you crashed? Yeah they put their blue lights on. They didn't have anything that day? No they couldn't keep up. Was that a bike? Yeah it was an R6. Was it a rapid then? Yeah and as they come behind me put the blue lights on I dropped a gear shot off and they weren't knowing where to be seen but as I come into the bend too fast it's like going like this and then I just remember looking up in the ditch and seeing him like yeah him saying don't run and all this water it was a stream and it's going over me and I'm like thinking it's blood but I'm still trying to get up and run but my arm weren't coming and it was just... So you'd just become a recluse then? For two years. Because all the things that you mentioned about yourself you already had that before the crash anyway. So I'd imagine that just enhanced that where you thought why me? Mate I just wallowed in self pity. They put me straight into a place where my cousin used to live actually my auntie's son and it's in Ternford and Cheson and it was... I just didn't come out my friends would knock on the door and I'd pretend I weren't in I'd ignore them because I didn't talk to no one I sat there for two years and like I have very often had people come around I didn't want to come out I didn't feel comfortable how I was I had this prosthetic arm that I wore anytime I'd wear it and then I started... I did start coming up and it would either be to get higher and get drunk and then go back to sleep like it was that cycle of numb the pain, sleep numb the blame, sleep and that's all it was I didn't do nothing for them times like it was just horrible horrible time like a feeling sorry for myself obviously I was clinically depressed they said I had PTSD I'm on grieving of the seal of loss of my arm but I'm doing nothing to actually walk on making myself feel better I'm just wallowing in my negative emotions and feeling sorry for myself and everything's just getting worse because the way I was looking at the situation How was it using the left hand again drinking paints and...  I can fucking barely keep it straight with two hands I use the triangle so if it's in the middle of the table I put it on the triangle and do it like that and just practice and yeah and FIFA the same I just had to practice and I was beating people in there so how do you do FIFA on that with one hand? so we're talking Xbox 360s in prison we're going way back and I put my palm on that the ball and then I'll do the fingers with this but yeah and I had to play people and majority of people would know that I'm quite good and it was just fun see when you start doing that stuff badminton, pool FIFA and one hand does that then start giving you confidence and realise wait I've got one hand on the world did you start growing in confidence that you can still do things or were you doing that stuff before you went to prison? yeah I was doing it a bit before but do you know like I was so competitive I noticed this about me I was so competitive if I lost I would get so defensive argumentive and I started to that I was putting out my validation on the win and that was my self worth it would become like something where I would be so overly proud of winning and it would bring up these emotions and it made me go like negative and so I had to work on that and I started understanding that stop putting yourself on a fucking game so at first it didn't give me confidence only if I won and it's false confidence because I'm putting the validation on it so it was never really stable confidence like I feel now it was just if I won confidence so not really it was superficial how many definite prisons were you in? I started in Bedford I got chucked out they put not for return because that's my local all my friends are there and in Bedford you can I don't know about now but if you're on COA you can ping over the wall and there were suspicions we was getting parcels and all this they put us in a good order, shipped me to Peter Brown my friend to Leicester and then they didn't let me come back but I've been there before a few times because I've been on Remarne in Bedford and we didn't get on I think it's because I got a lot of friends in that jail at the time so then they shipped me to Peter Brown Peter Brown is like a stroll in a park man I've never been to a prison like it you can tell them what to do they ain't really got a clue you can go in and rat your own movement slip and go off the wing, go to reception tell them that you want your pass there's no authority in there I don't know about now but we're talking in 2015-16 they didn't have no authority in the prison because it's all people just coming from McDonald's and working and it was like young officers have no clue man and they ain't got a clue but then I went loud and I've been knotting them briefly Pentonville scrubs Bullendon, Wayland the Mount, that's not all on one sentence because I've had a few other times I've been to prison as well after I got 15 months but they just ship you about when you're messing about What did you get 15 months for? The most stupidest thing, I'm on the train and with one of my friends and the transport police are coming up the train for us and we're moving that other way and he pulled the door, made the train stop and we jumped off to get off because we've got stuff on us and they gave me 15 months in prison for pulling the door and jumping off the train Many sentences you've done I've had a lot of remands I was on remand for a knife point robbery after a festival that I didn't even do the crime I've had probably about six, seven remands and not all of them have come to cases sometimes you get released after it sometimes you get charged for it and then I've had probably four or five times and then the big one but yeah, like I said, I was on a remand for a knife point robbery at a festival a guy had to sell, sold me a ticket I brought it off him someone else comes in and says they want two tickets he's only got one left, he said to me he let me get that back because the guy's offering him more he dath, like fuck off and I had the prosthetic on at that time he's like no, give me the ticket I was like no, he went to the police they didn't really listen to him they come and arrest me for a knife point robbery he's gone and told them that I robbed him a knife point when I've gone to trial for this year because they reminded me straight away gone to trial for it, they might tell me how did he take the ticket off you and hold the knife which hand did he take the ticket if he's got the knife and he said with his other hand and then instantly the judge directed the jury saying look Chris couldn't have done that he's got one arm, he had one arm at a time do you not know that he must have not known because I had the prosthetic on I don't know but not guilty but I've done six months for him on for it so how much pressure was on you once you lost them and doing all the other shit but did you feel more pressure in your life to then try and keep doing all the dath shit yeah I felt like it was fucking, it's delayed thinking though isn't it it's crazy man 100% James, when I look back at it now it's like what was I thinking it's like I was searching to become the person I was before to make myself feel better for the loss the person I was was another person to search for so what I was going for was never going to be a positive outcome but it was like I was looking for that to feel how I felt before but how I felt before was acting in a way that it was destructive so yeah I felt pressure, I was struggling mentally I didn't feel good, I was going to the doctors that just give me tablets yeah it was just and while I was in on that sentence like for majority of the beginning the first two years, 80 months I didn't feel good at all How many people look with disabilities and stuff are in prison when you were there I've seen a few, I've seen like a couple guys in wheelchairs I met another guy with one arm um but like physical disabilities I've seen a couple with legs missing um but yeah, not like serious crimes not, I wouldn't say I don't think any of them had an EDS but one of them got 16 years in a wheelchair for guns so that's a serious crime and one got a 10 for food in a wheelchair paralyzed so yeah I've seen a couple of people like that How do you handle the word disabilities do you use that or do you try not use it because it's a horrible word that in it? 100% I used to I didn't class myself as disabled but now yeah I do it's it's a hand I've been dealt and I am disabled and I have to be confident in who I am now today and that's part of it I suppose, that's part of the journey that I'm on What about running and stuff because obviously you see people in the Paralympics they're fucking smashing they're strong, they're powerful it goes to show what can be done with the mind as well I imagine they felt like quitting at the start I imagine everybody would have lost a limb but when you see them and effort they put in and the work rate the running and the exercise, gymnastics whatever it is in that field for not to give up and keep going it's some strength it must be some strength Do you ever look to these people as well and think fuck me, life's not quite over but even though when you think it was at the start they're just not even looking for inspiration from no can it took me a while before I started changing at first I didn't look for these inspirations I got mentors that helped me in that journey I would say and that come I started writing my life down in a autobiography I read everything down and that gave me some clarity I started to understand what I've been through and how I'm letting this come out in other ways so while I'm in the sentence I'm doing that then I started writing a call I've had my sentence reduced from ten and a half years now to eight and a half so I'm thinking now I need to start progressing and I met this guy and he said to me let me see your OACs which is basically your risk assessment score in prison and he's like oh my god your score is ridiculous you need to do the courses and if you want to get decad and go home you could be in decad over in a year so then I started playing the game I suppose as they call it and trying to progress done all right with the courses and he helped in a sense of like making me change but it started me thinking about emotions because I'd never even considered what emotions were I didn't really have not I was totally naive I knew nothing about it so I started working and writing help then I eventually did get to a decad and that's where I met some guy that probably changed the trajectory of my life because he was an educated guy told him about my story, he read it and then he was probably the first man in my life and that I admired and was inspired by it and he helped me to change the way I see things because when I'll talk to him I'll think how I'm thinking is just so thick like he would make do you know when you're talking to someone that's clever you're like I don't even think like that and it just started making me see and he was very good at making me see things differently and from then that's when I started looking at more in depth of why I do this how what I've been through is impacting the way I show up in the world and started really reading because I was like to him I want to publish a book he's like well do you read I was like no he's like well no and I started reading about adverse childhood experiences and how they impact brain development and how you're more likely to not be able to regulate emotions or you're going to more likely to engage in risk-taking behaviours and this is resonating with me I'm like okay and then you're more likely to engage in poor coping mechanisms and then I'm looking at the impacts of how you can overcome this and it's like fitness, nutrition positive mentors and like a purpose and things like that and then I just started working because I was fat this time I was like 17 stone with one arm big belly and just started working on myself and losing weight and doing fitness and doing fitness for me was honestly that single handedly took me out of depression and like gone from fat yeah I used to think that the weight had nothing to do with it or not being active had nothing to do with it it would single handedly took me from someone on depression tablets to not I lost five stone I had continually working doing exercises even though I fucking despised it at first that gave me some like discipline that I've never probably had in my life like doing things that I hated doing and from then on it was all about progressing mentally, physically, emotionally spiritually and that continues and becoming more self aware of how these traumas these triggers impact you because I've read a great book The Body Keepers of Scorn he talks about hurt people hurt people and it's like I couldn't stop hurting people to understand how that would hurt was hurting me and that's where like that our hard moment was it was like okay now this turns into something and he helped me that guy helped me all the way and I met Andrew in at the same time who you know and he was helping me because he'd be writing he'd written an urban smuggler and I'd be in there it was a computer room and he'd be in there doing his work every day after work and I'd be in there every day doing my book taking it from because I had to write it with my left hand which was like torture because it was like kids writing so then I had to print take the writing that I'd written and type it up into a computer with one hand and that was like this but I'd done it and he was there every day and he'd seen me working and that we would become friends and he was friends with a guy that changed my last Sam and that helped me to see things differently and then now it's just been a continuous thing and the thing about this adverse childhood experience is that 80% of the people in prison have suffered it one or more but no one's doing nothing in prison about it and you can go into prison today and it's like they don't even ask you about it but if you've got a substance problem they'll make you do an awareness course but they're chopping at the leaves and then you're coming out of the stress free prison like I say to you and going back into an environment to become successful or do anything worthy is stressful and then then stressors you straight away back on the substance in that cycle of crime, prison and nothing changes like I feel like that's why I want to share my story because people need to be able to work on and become more self-aware of how the shit we go through at a young age is how impacting how we're showing up in the world and if we can do that we can reduce crime but then do they really want to because there's a whole other concept of adverse childhood experiences that impact or make you more likely to have cancer Alzheimer's, heart disease, diabetes and this is all factual you can search it on the internet and it's like do they really want to do you really want to put a dent in that because prison system is money bro it's 40 50 grand a year per inmate and it's a money system that's slavery when they don't want change like 80% or over 70% of the people who are in prison re-offending and end up back in prison it's a system, it's flawed it's a system, it's not working it's a system where they're happy to feed you fucking what's the green stuff you used to drink what's the fucking for people hearing addicts they're happy feeding methadone and all the tablets and come out zombieed up and then because life is tough without any childhood trauma how was it working within, how was it looking at where you were and why you acted the way you were because that is a painful journey in itself it's a journey I'm still on to hear, to understand it and look at it and then understand how it's impacting you then I was in a position where I could consciously start working on it because before I didn't even know I was like a zombie that was reacting to something so trivial in a moment not knowing that that's bringing up something that is triggered from before so I'd perceived that disagreement but it's really bringing up these emotions that I wasn't even aware that the root cause so understanding that gave me the strength to not live my emotional life on the weakness of others and then I was in control so it was like hard and it is hard to look at things and take accountability and work on it and go through it but that's the only way to change the reactive and aggressive way that I was in my opinion how I was to understand it and you have to go through it and look at everything and work out why that's showing up and how you can work on changing that from showing up it's not easy it's probably the hardest thing to do to actually say well I'm in control of this this is my destiny I have to address this yes I've had things happen that wasn't my fault but when you're consciously aware of that and you continue to do it then it becomes your problem and you need to address it yourself work through it and that's where the support should be imprisoned it isn't there it's mad childhood trauma as well because some people die with their childhood trauma some people never speak about it and some people when you do speak about it it's not until your 20s or 30s or 40s where damage has already been done if a kid is going through trauma they don't really know it's trauma until they're older and that's the thing that even as much as domestic abuse in a house it's that scar you infox yourself up with relationships and addictions and everything that that's connected to it and it's sad because the majority of households have got that anger issues and it's not people are bad it's just the pressure of life is already known seeing their fathers doing it and their mums and dads and grandparents and it just passes down but if you don't if we don't heal the pain now that affects our kids our kids who need to fight the pain and try and break the curse face to face with whatever shit we're dealing with we just pass it down and then we leave it on their kids and then their kids and it's just generational so it's important to face your fears head on now if not you're passing it down to your future and that's why I think this whole fucking generation is fucked in the head I think a lot of shame is a problem because it's like you've had that and in shame detention you don't want to open up because it's like this or you feel like you either deny it or you don't want to talk about it because it's painful and it's hurtful and that's like you say it's a problem and I feel like if we don't start talking about it or dealing with it and working for it then you're just going to live that cycle of in and out thinking that these beliefs are alright and justifying it for some misguided opinion that you have of why you're doing it and it's just I don't think people are really doing all this stuff they do for post codes because that's what they stand for I think that comes from somewhere surely You know what I mean? 100% there must be more to it and you have to just work through that and it's the painful but it takes courage and the other side of it is just I think for me it's been joy and deeper relationships and like better living and stress free you know and as hard as it is it's just something you've got to do especially within the prison system When was the light bulb moment because there's a lot, not a lot of information but it takes a moment you go fuck me a little bit of misery and pain of course there's a moment where you realise what was I thinking, what was I doing was there a moment for you and you realised what the fuck was I playing at It wasn't just one thing I think it was like all of these things pulling in one thing but like it wasn't like a hard moment it was like once I understood what I'd been through I'd really start consciously making better decisions because I've actually now got the awareness and unless people get that I don't think that you can make that decision because sometimes you're just reacting without knowing what's coming from, that's how I was and then once I understood it that's when it was like alright now you've got to take action or you can't blame no and now you know what you need to work on and go through it and it wasn't a single of thing that's the mentor that Andrew and Sam that people guiding me, supporting me showing me that you can do this do you know like there was fitness there's so many, I got into meditation like these things all helped at their own time the natural things the natural things and life that we don't use enough the things that make us feel good but yet we'll self harm, we'll weak junk food drink drugs, gambling, violence all the negative traits something internally to your wiring in the body it scares you, I've spoken to enough people to understand how humans operate and what makes them operate and how they become who they are but it's just fucking sad because there's so much great remedies out there to then because even overweight when my weight goes up and down my weight goes up, there's something not quite right when you're eating that emotions and not really speaking about it and I notice that it's not to put anybody down that's overweight but people who are overweight are struggling in life it's a depression in my eyes you're eating something to take away the pain that's happening internally and you say when you start exercising start looking after yourself you can tell when somebody's in a good place by their appearance in a way and it's not like I say shoot anybody down but you can they're just a different energy and a different vibe where they truly love themselves because they're looking after themselves more than the average person like I say just sitting vegetating eat away at life which I do sometimes you think fuck this it's easier, it's comfortable but it's just the way it makes you feel there's no better feeling an exercise in our cold water therapy or try to raise the bar and try to bite at yourself but the majority of people don't because it's hard it's painful try to work on yourself and keep progressing look after yourself when it's just easy to go and eat shit we're living in a super process world isn't we like everything's just marketed at you it's hard to not and to eat well it's hard isn't it and then to be disciplining such a load of easy options like you say and they're comforting there's something they do I think they have that neuroscience working to make it taste away to make you feel a type of way so it's hard to be disciplined and eat healthy yeah but there are benefits and what comes with it is so beneficial in my because being from someone else overweight to being around now yeah it's like it's so beneficial man because even the foods in the shop was like Las Vegas so just all the bright colours but foods in the shop and supermarkets and petrol stations they aren't food that's cravings there's a difference between eating food and craving food sometimes you go up a bit of chocolate it's not really food it's just the craving of the sugar of the taste of the taste buds what it does to the reward system in the brain but if you actually ask yourself would you eat a bit of fucking asparagus or carrots and if you didn't want it because if you're hungry you would eat anything anything no matter if it's fucking salads or whatever it is but it's the cravings it's the sitting the boredom to then I'll go and get a pack of cris what I do nearly everything just something kicks in where I feel as if I'll reward myself something doesn't quite quite feel right so I'll reward myself for the junk food to reward myself just for a split seconds and it's sad man because the majority of people feel like that and like I said it's not to put anybody down it's overweight or underweight or whatever it is but there's teas and tools to feel better, think better act better but it's difficult because it's everything's glamorous out there you get into supermarkets and the aisles are just we don't even read what's actually on it including myself sometimes I'll be on it and I'll go and I'll fuck that and I'll be amazing for six weeks then something slips the craving takes over again and it's like I said there's just so much out there see when you started losing the weight and training hard was that when you thought okay the confidence started coming back and you started believing in yourself that life's not quite over and I don't need to be that person that I was yeah for sure like once I started training I was reading meditating and that was in prison and then I started working at a charity and I was going out every day and I'm around positive people so I'd only stay in the prison at the weekends and then you go on a home leave because you're just an open prison so I was around all these people at charities they were all like kind and at first I felt like what's going on I felt uncomfortable because they were all being so nice I even said to them I don't feel because I'm not used to this isn't it when people are like that in prison there's an ulterior motive and it was like being around them people hearing what Sam and saying and Andrew and fitness and having that discipline and eating well and then believing like I want to I didn't know how I knew I wanted to use my experiences what I've been through to help someone that may be going through what I've been through like the trauma and using it in a negative way and it's not an excuse because people have been through worse and never done anything bad but when when you're living in the deprived areas and you're getting commended for your bad behaviour then it's kind of like you kind of idolise it so I wanted to help people I wasn't sure how exactly but I knew that I was going to and yeah I wanted to do public speaking I've written a book so I just wanted to just make a difference and that all them things happened at once and it was yeah it was just what's the book called for people who make better I haven't published it yet it needs a structural edit because I'm not a writer but that will be coming next year I've written two actually I've written a practical guide as well of like what we just talked about how I overcome this offending behaviour that was in my opinion driven by the trauma that I've been through and just step by step what I did might not work for everyone but it's just how I had done it and that will probably be out before the autobiography but that's going to be next year looking at how I need a structural edit on it I would love to make it into a course or something like an ace awareness course an adverse childhood experience course in prisons that just gives them the understanding of how it affects your brain development emotional regulation increasing retaking behaviours and substance misuse and then how you can overcome it and then giving people that curiosity to say alright do I want to do the graph myself or am I going to continue to blame people because then people that are sitting in position of blame probably ain't going to change at that moment so I would love to that's the goal to eventually do something but I'm going into prisons next year doing talks so things are happening but it's slowly slowly You're already doing it brother think of where you've came from 100% because you know yourself it's the environment it's the circle we keep so when you came out were you already on that path of 100% starting to know who you wanted to be or were you thinking about getting active again No I never had any idea of getting active so I come out and I was trying to like do positive I end up on a tracker for 6 months I get released after the tracker comes off I get arrested for a crime I was at a party I dropped this guy back I got arrested for a kidnap with a firearm now I didn't do this they didn't charge me but they rang my probation up and told him we got him on this charge I end up NFA in it so I never got charged I never went to court but I got a recall for that so I've done a year on a recall after being out for 7 months and I was like right I need to and that's when I come I got a recall I end up getting a parole and they released me instantly because there were no charges I shouldn't have been in and there's so many people in prison now that are getting recalled without any charges because the police tell the probation that they think they're doing something and they're in prison and the police get up to 2 years to investigate that so if you've got a long licence they can take 2 years if they want and you're in prison but now did you not see the news the other day they're saying that they're not going to put rapists or burglars in prison but you've got people on recalls for phone calls how about letting them out before you start do you know what I mean the system is just crazy but so I come out then and I was more focused I was like fuck that I'm working with anyone that can cause me that and if I do it it's going to be in a controlled environment where I can back up my so I can't get recalled for a phone call and that's where I've been working with Andrew working with other people, mentors I've got to just get out there I want to do more public speaking I want to do maybe some corporates on resilience overcome university but more I want to get into prisons and help people like me or schools to maybe drink driving just to get this message out and maybe change some narratives and be proactive in society instead of just criticising and complaining actually contributing for once what about the soccer you kept before you went in because you know yourself and need to distance yourself from everyone I don't know no one from before I know them but I don't talk to no one from before and it's that happened naturally because they showed when you're in prison you see who people are especially when you're doing five years or weren't there so if you're showing up when I'm getting out I don't care because no one comes to see me and I probably wouldn't have I was in a bad place but yeah I didn't I'd never kept no friends from before What's your mum's city all now when I think about the shit I put her through it makes me upset now she's so proud of me and which that makes me happy but it's been a journey through so much shit and when I look at it the stress I've caused her is just like I can't do nothing but yeah now she's happy for the first time we have probably the strongest relationship we've had and that's not because it's because I'm in a position to offer that it's always been there but I've not ever seen it or been the man I needed to be to have that relationship and that's the one thing about embracing your vulnerabilities and looking at all your weaknesses and coming more up aware with your traumas you actually build deeper and meaningful relationships with people because you're in a position to yeah and my family and me are getting on better than I ever have and that is probably one of my proudest things actually so far That is the most important thing, same as myself as a father in that and passing the kids around when you get them just for other people to watch them and you're doubt fucking getting high and hiding and pretending and being weak and soft and vulnerable to fucking life because you can't handle it, you blame everybody else but when the changes happen that's the hardest thing for me and I always say it's when you start making changes it's the pain that you've done beforehand is to accept that and sometimes when you're in a good mid you'll think about fuck me or the pain and misery I caused my dad was dying of leukemia and I had a damn response through the door and it's three months to live and I'm out fucking high as fuck partying and you just think fuck me or that how do you do it sad as your life to not be a man and protect your family and be there for your family and make sure they're safe and I made everything unsafe because I was a fucking loose cannon and that's the thing when you make changes like you say proudest thing no matter if I get books out or having a podcast or whatever it is the most proudest moment is your mum going to sleep at night and only your baby is fucking on the right path no to sleepless nights or the phone calls at five in the morning because only time we get phone calls at five in the morning there's two reasons because somebody was out partying or the coppers were at your door do you know what I mean or somebody had been fucking short do you know what I mean the constant worry of not knowing when your son's out for three four days or the son's in prison with one fucking arm and do you know what I mean because men are on this planet to provide and protect but also mothers are protectors they protect their babies and then you destroy that and it fucks them up because they must struggle with PTSD struggle and have sleepless nights thinking fuck me the shit that I've been through but as a woman they just soldier on we are like the women we are the ones always complaining and this is what I always say women I believe are stronger than men men build the world yes but with the women and how they give birth and how they create life and what they put into trying to keep a roof over the kids heads and stuff it's unbelievable what they do men and women they have both roles and beneath each other there's a lot of talk now about the argument and fighting about men this and women this and both need each other but for me women are the center there women are the ones who who keep the world going men build it but women are the strong ones women can give a buffer nine month and do what she does to keep that kid healthy with the breastfeeding and the energy that she gives to keep kids there listen we need father figures we need that masculine energy million percent but women have got it sucked out more than men and I believe it's your mum what was it like when she said she's proud of you yeah it was a good moment because I hadn't given her many opportunities to say that before and now she says it quite often so it's like yeah it's such a good feeling and to actually acknowledge it before I didn't even think when I look like you say when you look back and you think what you've done it's so selfish so self-centred and yeah I can only now just try to make it a better future for her like I will show yeah it was lovely to hear so it's the most important thing that you've learned for people who do watch and listen like I always fucking repeat this but the majority of people do struggle in life and a lot of people are just happy going through their life working hard there's so many amazing people out there who just provide and try and do the right things for their family get up at five in the morning go to work come home at night have their dinner go to bed and then repeat that same cycle but I know a lot of people are in robotic mode we don't really know in depth how much childhood trauma affects them but what's the most important thing that you've learned going through your own journey is to just work through your shit go back look at your life adventure most critical moments the most things that are vivid in your mind and then assess how these especially obviously the negative things and then just understand how that's coming out how it's affecting you because it must be especially if you're in and out of prison how is it showing up how can you address it nowadays you don't need to be intellectual you can just go on chat gbt and ask it what are the best leading professor in childhood trauma would say and get the information so you could have it as your therapist if you really wanted to so you can work through this stuff but you just need to take that journey of addressing what's happened how it's showing up is it giving me negative beliefs am I in control of things you know like get control of your mind just become more self aware about what's happened in your life and how it's impacting the way you show up it's such a hard journey James to acknowledge that you are at fault for everything that's going on and to stop it and change it and stop being reactive or acting how you feel it's hard to accept that but for me once I did the narrative changed and I was in control I no longer was living my life from the weaknesses of others my emotional life anyway so yeah I had to had to go through that and just understand it and writing it down for me was the massive like okay okay now you get clarity from that who's leave now yeah it's good man honestly I live in steam and it's just I love it it's just I don't know I'm really I see a few people in the gym I'm just out here trying to slowly build I've got a few speaking events coming up I work with a charity like I said I'm going into prisons in January like I want to get more speaking sharing this message I'm going to publish these books next year and just yeah I'm just trying to slowly make a positive impact in society and things are really really good for me physically, mentally and spiritually I've worked on every bit and I feel so much better for it yeah I don't obviously we have days where you're down but I don't it's not like depression it's just you don't feel great to take it on with it you know that and things are just good yeah how's that in the gym and stuff because people are nosy people are always going like we're trying to look but even when you're trying to look you always get caught so you must see eyes on your old friends you know what I mean we're not being bad we're just nosy like how do you deal with that that people are looking at you at peace with it now or do you still kind of get it it used to be such a problem it used to be so defensive but now I get it you just are curious you just want to understand how that impacts your life because it's not normal to you so I get it and the gym people always ask me because I've got this thing that clips on and I do my chest as much as I can with a cable and that side and obviously it's never going to be the same as I'm going to be able to dig it cut from it's an above elbow amputation so it's not for whack then so you still get movement yeah I've got some like I can do a bit of chest here yeah it's people look and they're always going to look and I don't wear a prosthetic on them or because for me it was like why am I trying to mask and have something that has no benefits it's just there for aesthetics because I don't know but when I was in hospital they told me that I had a and I don't know if I'm saying this right a brachlo prexis fracture or something like that which basically means you've written the nerves at the top of the spine or something that's what I remember it as but these times are very vague and that means that the nerves something to do with them arms so I think the nerves kind of work with arms but because of that injury I don't I don't really understand but they said you wouldn't be able to have one of them robotic ones but I've never ever a symud wnaeth ymgolwyr i am wneud i ddim yn ymdill ac yn wneud i'r iawn am y gynhyrchu o'r wneudio phall erioedd yn beth oherwydd i gael. Ac yn uwch, mae'n ei gweithio'n llaw iawn i'r llaw. A pob o'n amlwch i ddim yn gweld o ff breadau sydd yn hynny, byddwch'n llaw iawn gyda'n gwybod yn gwneud o ddod yn mynd i fod yn llawer o'r blannu yn llaw iawn ar beth o'r llaw iawn.