Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host for tonight. Chris mccausland applause hello, ladies and gentlemen welcome to ouch storytelling live at the Edinburgh Festival fringe cheering and applause ijust turned 42, just a month ago. I am enjoying being in my 405, if im honest, i feel good for it. I dont do birthday parties though. I didnt even have a aoth. My mates, they took me to see guns n roses live, or so they told me anyway. We could have just gone to their houses and put the live album on, couldnt we . Charge me six quid a pint for three hours. Not as busy as you would have thought, this guns n roses concert, is it chris . Not as popular as they were, it seems. You enjoying yourself . Yeah, mate, sound. It sounds a bit weird, theres a cat, but never mind. We have go a series of storytellers today who each have a disability or a Mental Health difficulty. Some of these guys have never been on stage before. The theme this year is lost and found, and weve let the guys interpret that however they want to. The only criteria is that the stories are all true. So guys, let me ask you, are you ready for your first storyteller of the show . Crowd yes what i want is a lot of love, support for Reece Finnegan cheering and applause hello. Ifeel like being lost and getting lost is pretty integral to being a blind person. Like, im 23 now, ive been blind eye life. The story im telling today is about when i got lost in my brand new bosss house. This was last year. Its a saturday morning, i wake up a little bit hungover. I have. Phone and none of my other possessions. So all i can rememberfrom the night before is that i had been out for some drinks with some new colleagues after work. After a couple of bars, one of them, jay, who happened to be the bosss son, invites a couple of us back to his house in kensington for some after drinks. About nine hours later i wake up in this random place with no idea where i am and no sign of my colleagues anywhere. This house was huge, right, it was a mansion. Four floors and tons of rooms, really hard to navigate. Believe me, when youre visually impaired, trying to get out of disabled toilet without feeling up the changing table is hard enough, so this was a massive struggle. Im in a rush because im trying to get home for my little nephews birthday, so i get out of bed and i come to the first door, which happens to be an ensuite toilet. So im sitting there for five or ten minutes maybe, and then i hear suddenly theres a voice coming from close by, this unfamiliar female voice, saying, hey, reece, its jays mum. Jay told me youre staying and ijust wanted to see if youre ok, if you needed anything, because im flying off to la in five minutes. So the advice in this situation for a blind person is that if you are offered help you to probably take it when it is offered, because you dont know when it will be offered again. I didnt do that. I was so shocked and awkward to hear someone so close by when i thought i was casually on the toilet, that all i could do wasjust squeak back, like, no, im fine, thank you. Im good. To make matters worse when i stood up and pulled my trousers up, i was feeling around for a sink and i found another door to the bathroom, a door which had been open the entire time, and a door which jays mum had been standing in while she was talking to me. So not only was this not an ensuite toilet, my new mates mum had just been talking to me with my pants down on the toilet. I dont even think she had business in la, i think she was just flying there to escape the unbearable awkwardness of the situation. Still love that. So, anyway, dignity at an all time high, obviously, i thought, you know what, what have i got left to lose . Im going to go and explore, ill try and find my stuff and get out as quick as possible, jays mum was already gone. So i come out of this new door and come into a hallway, which hasjust so many doors coming off it, an absolute labyrinth. I have no idea where im going, so ijust edge in one direction down the hallway. I got to some stairs. Nice, big spiral staircase, and im congratulating myself because im going well so far, minus the toilet incident. It is going all right until i reach the top of the stairs and i clang into something giant and metal. So i stumble back a little bit, fully expecting some kind of like home alone trap to just unleash itself on me, and it turned out to be a massive suit of armour just leaning against the wall. Laughter so its not what you would expect to find when youre just strolling through a house. But anyway. It dawns on me at this point, this is my bosss house, so there is a lot of expensive stuff around. And ive only been at this job for two weeks as well, so im pretty sure rampaging through priceless ornaments is not going to do me any favours at thisjob. Eventually i find myself in a cloakroom. So i was feeling my way round there, just coats and bags, the biggest cloakroom i have ever been in my life, bigger than every room in my house, it was crazy. Im in there and i hear noise from outside, a bit like footsteps. I think ok, maybe someone can help me. The other thing is that i felt a bit of panic, because i dont know about other visually impaired people but i dont really like not having my symbol cane, i dont really like not having it on me if im meeting new people. Just because it avoids awkwardness, if i miss a handshake, it avoids awkward questions like, who are you . Why are you in my house . I didnt have it on me unfortunately. So ijust kind of sheepishly came out of the cloakroom, hands up, i promise im not burgling you. It was not a person, it turned out to be a cat. So im not religious at all, but i think this cat was an absolute miracle, a divine animal sent from the disability friendly gods, who saw my time of need and sent me a messenger. Because this cat brushes past my leg and it kind of leads me down a new corridor, which i dont think i would have seen by myself because it was quite dark, quite dimly lit, and it has a little bell round its collar, so very helpful. I follow this cat and i go into another room, which turns out to be a massive, beautiful kitchen. In there i find a housekeeper who was very confused to see me, but very friendly, and she pointed me to all of my stuffjust sitting there on the kitchen table, my bag, my symbol cane, my charger, everything i needed. I nearly collapsed with relief, i was so happy. I charged my phone, got out of there, it does have a happy ending. I made it to my nephews birthday on time, i got out of the house independently with a bit of an assist from the miracle cat and even better, later on i found out that my boss found another one of my colleagues downstairs passed out in his pants on the sofa. So compared to him, i didnt do too badly. Laughter thank you so much. Thanks for listening. Cheering and applause ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Reece Finnegan. Cheering and applause please welcome to the stage, Sarah Collins cheering and applause hi. Ive a condition that is often erroneously called pure 0h. Pure 0 is short for purely obsessional ocd, a kind of ocd that does not involve some of your traditional compulsions like excessive hand washing, cleaning or performing rituals. Symmetry does not do much for me. I couldnt care less about whether my revision notes are colour coded or not. My bedroom is the messiest room you will have ever seen in your life. Research has shown that purely obsessional ocd is not actually purely obsessional at all. We have compulsions, they just dont look like your traditional variety. My compulsion is reassurance seeking, which means basically asking my poor mother over and over and over again whether she is absolutely sure i wont put her in front ofa train. That she can guarantee that no one is filming me through the camera on my laptop screen. When living with ocd, it is easy to get lost in a tunnel where im being guided by a voice that isnt my own. The voice doesnt reflect my values or my personality, the voice is melodramatic, attention seeking and downright mean. And im not like that at all so it cant be my voice. At its most extreme, the voice can generate false memories. A few years ago, i went on a massive night out to celebrate the end of my a levels with my friends. Sorry, im getting ocd about performing this thing about ocd, so. Just bear with me. Applause. While i untangle that one. So, a few years ago, i went on a massive night out with my friends to celebrate my a levels. However, for me, the after effects of drinking can extend well beyond the usual case of hangover anxiety. On this particular night out, i knew id overdone it so when i got in, i got a huge glass of water and popped two paracetamol tablets. I was drunk, but aware. The next morning i woke up with a massive headache, and lay motionless for a few minutes, running back through the memories from the night before. I saw myself coming into the house, going into the kitchen, getting the glass of water and the paracetamol, and then it came. The intrusive thought. I had taken a whole box of paracetamol tablets. I could feel the sensation of the cardboard in my fingers, the feeling of swallowing each tablet. I was in danger, grave danger. I ran downstairs in search of the physical evidence. I rifled through the cupboard. I found just one box of paracetamol, and it was almost full, with only two tablets missing. With overwhelming relief i realised i was going to be fine. I was fine. But. Hang on. How could i be sure . How could i be absolutely, 100 sure that the box of paracetamol that was in the cupboard was the same box that had been there last night . What if i had taken all those tablets and then drunkenly thrown the box in the bin . And just like that, there it was. Another memory. I could hear the bin clanging shut. Oh god. Oh god i was going to have to look through the bin. I thought about putting some rubber gloves on, but really, when i was mere hours away from certain death by liver damage, was a bit of bin juice going to hurt me . Ive never looked less like your stereotypical ocd sufferer than in that moment. When i was leaning over the bin, face down, cars up, trawling through mouldy cabbage and gone off cheese in search of some empty paracetamol boxes. There were no boxes in the bin. And then i had a brainwave im a millennial. However drunk i was, i would never forget to recycle. Laughter check the recycling, no boxes. There was only one thing for it. Call 111. Hello, iii. Whats your problem today . Um, i think i mightve taken a paracetamol overdose . And how many tablets have you taken in the past 2a hours . Um, i think ive only taken two tablets, but i was drunk and im not sure, and ive this feeling ive ta ken a paracetamol overdose . But you can only remember taking two tablets . Youve just got a feeling youve ta ken a paracetamol overdose . Yes, and i feel drunk and tired and awful . I think youvejust got hangover, love. So that was the official opinion, i was going to live, i could get on with my day. That was until i was on the train to birmingham with my sister, and along came another thought. This time it was me, lying in a hospital bed with tubes all over me. Then it was words flashing against a black screen. You couldve prevented this. You couldve gone to hospital and had your stomach pumped, if only youd listened to me . The train pulled into the station and i had my plan. I told my sister ijust needed to get a few books, some folders from when i was going to uni. I sprinted to catch a train heading to the station nearest to the Queen Elizabeth hospital, university of birmingham. I sent students flying as i barged up the escalators through the gates, across the road, and stopped directly outside the glass double doors to a e. I paused forjust one second, and breathed. Even though i knew where i was, i was utterly and completely lost in a world of menacing thoughts. Even a fun night out with my friends from my a levels had had a sinister consequence. This wasnt a life. I had to be brave. I replayed the memories from the night before. I walked into the kitchen. I got a glass of water. I tookjust two paracetamol tablets, and i went to bed. My brain was screeching at this point but what about the other memories . You can afford to take this risk, are you that stupid, do you want to. Die . But when i tried to recall the other memories the 2a tablets, the bin they just disappeared. They morphed and switched into other terrifying fears, other horrible what ifs. And then, underneath the rest of the chatter, but growing louder and louder, i heard my own voice. Turn around, sarah, and walk away. You can do this. In front of me, people with broken legs and raging fevers were hobbling into a e. I turned around. I walked back towards the station, back towards life. I wasnt lost anymore. Thank you very much. Cheering and applause her first time on stage Sarah Collins, guys. Cheering and applause ok, to finish the show, make some noise forjoe wells. Applause hello. Hello, edinburgh. Are you well . Audience yes. Good. This is my story about losing my headphones. I should give you some background to this story. Im an autistic man. Ive been a man for 12 years. Before then, i was a boy, and ive always been autistic. But i only had the diagnosis earlier this year, and when you get that diagnosis, you spend a lot of time, too much time, wondering about stuff that happened in your past, negative experiences. Would that have all been different if id had this diagnosis . One thing id say for a fact, its helped explain things for me. Like, theres always been things which ive really disliked, but everyone else seems to love. The main three things are eye contact, the sound of mens voices and the arctic monkeys. The third one, thats not an autistic thing. I just think i just think theyre a really overrated band. People talk about them like theyre the next beatles. Talking about eye contact, i think it is weird. I think its weird that you people do that. Think about what eye contact is. Weve all got two jelly balls that we hold inside our of skulls and we walk around sucking in light into ourjelly balls at all times. And when you want to be polite to someone, youre supposed to point yourjelly balls towards theirjelly balls, suck all the light off of their jelly balls. At your jelly balls, they suck the light off your jelly balls while youre sucking the light off their jelly balls, in a mutualjelly ball sucking thing. I find that weirdly intimate, when youve just met someone, to immediately suck on theirjelly balls. I used to get in trouble at school. I had a Science Teacher who used to say to me, joe, you have to make eye contact with me. Otherwise, i dont know youre listening to me. What kind of biology teacher are you, to think you listen with your eyes . But i dont like mens voices, either. I find. Apologies to any men in the room. I dont hate men, ijust hate mens voices. Mens voices sound like somebody is driving a motorbike through a wood chipper. Its like. Makes sound of motorbike driving through wood chipper. I like craft beer. That is what men sound like. I find that really distressing, i dont like it at all. Particularly more than one man three or more men talking over the top of each other i dont like that. Its why i dont watch top gear. I dont like it at all. So i avoid it i avoid mens voices as much as i can. I cant always do that. I work as a comedian, so ive to get late trains a lot, and men are drunk on the late trains. I hate it i hate the sound of drunk mens voices, and i never knew why that was until i had this diagnosis. I used to have to come up with a reason why. And what i thought id worked out was that i hate the sound of mens voices because im a good feminist and im very progressive, and i hate the sound of mens voices because it reminds me of all of the misogyny that women have endured for millennia. That would make sense as a theory if it werent for the fact that when i hear mens voices, i put my headphones on, i listen to music, and i listen to mainly gangsta rap. Thats what i like. I like the rap. Im sorry, i know its problematic, but i like it a lot. You cant kid yourself that youre drowning out the sound of toxic masculinity when youre listening to nwa to drown it out. I like gangsta gangsta best nwa song that im allowed to say the title of on this show. It is very offensive to various not minorities. I like that when dr dre, easy e and ice cube are talking, they take it in turns. I didnt exactly lose my headphones, my headphones broke, and they broke in london. The reason they broke was because i had only spent £10 on headphones. You should always spend a minimum £20 on headphones, otherwise its a false economy. If you spend £10, you maybe have to replace them five times a year. £20 set of headphone will last you the whole year. That is some consumer advice for you. Always spend at least £20 on headphones, thats the moral of the story. If you leave today and someone says, what was the bbc ouch show about . You tell them it was about how someone should spend minimum £20 on headphones. That is what i am telling you. But i didnt. I was young, naive and reckless, so i spent £10 on headphones. They broke on the tube in london. Still got to get a 2 hour train back to portsmouth, where i live. I was very anxious because i thought that there could be men with their loud man voices, talking, and that would be horrible, and i didnt have anything to drown it out. Got on the train, and there is one girl on her own whos drunk, not causing any problems. Theres a mother and daughter who have been to a west end show. Theyre talking about that. Theres one man on his own, businessmen on a laptop, thats fine, its going to be fine. There is no group of men talking. I pick up my book, i read my book. 15 minutes, its peaceful, its fine. And then after about 15 minutes, i heara kind of like a splattering noise. And i look up and i see that the really drunk girl, she has been sick on the floor. Quite a lot of sick just on the floor. And i look up and we make eye contact, and for the first time in my life, ive made eye contact with someone, and they feel less comfortable about it than i do. I look away. She is then sick again. Theres sick on sick on floor, and after shes been sick a second time, she gets up to go to the toilet to be sick. That is very much closing the stable door after the horse has been fully sick on the floor. But she does that. She gets up and walks past me. I looked up slightly, and i can see that she is ashamed of the fact that shes been sick, and i dont think she should have felt ashamed. Everyone has been drunk, and i dont mind that much that shes been sick, to be honest. Its just some human vomit, its not three or more men talking. Its fine. But you cant say that to someone, can you . Ive got enough social sense to know. Sometimes i get kind of social things wrong, and there is a thin line between saying, i dont mind you being sick and kind of sounding like youre enthusiastic about it. You want to get that right. It doesnt matter what i think, anyway. She feels ashamed and she covers her mouth with her hand out of shame, right . And then shes sick again. Now, do you remember school, when in the bathrooms at school, the bigger boys would put their thumbs over the taps, right, so the increased pressure of the water. You cant be disgusted by this, youre just having to hear about it. I had to live this in my real life. Increased pressure. She was sick on me out the side of her mouth. I was shocked, and i looked up and went, you have been sick on me. And she turned round to me. She said, im sor. And before she could say ry, she was fully sick again. I wish there was a better ending to this story that is it that is what happened. She was fully sick on me twice, and i had to go from woking to portsmouth covered in another womans sick. But. But heres the thing. I had this diagnosis this year, and ive been thinking a lot about would that diagnosis have changed things . Its easy to fall into that trap where you go, everything would have been different if id had this diagnosis earlier. And would that story have been different if i had an Autism Diagnosis . No, it wouldnt, of course not. I still would have been sicked on, she still would have been embarrassed, i still would have looked up at the start and made her feel embarrassed. I still would have heard the splatter. The thing that would have made a difference is if i would have had headphones on. That would have stopped me from hearing the vomit. Im not saying to me. It was important to me, having an Autism Diagnosis, but its not the most important thing in the world. The most important thing in the world is to spend at least £20 on headphones. Applause cheers. Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise forjoe wells. Applause and make some noise for everyone youve seen today. Applause you have seen reese finnegan, Sarah Collins, joe wells. My names chris mccausland. Thanks for being amazing, guys. Cheers, goodnight. Thank you. Applause hello. After a fine start to the weekend, sunday will continue on a similar note for most of us, but there are some changes on the way. This view from Northern Ireland came during saturday, some sunshine, but well expect more cloud on sunday. Why . Because while most of us stay under this finger of High Pressure giving us sunny spells, this weather front is moving into it with cloud into northern and western scotland and Northern Ireland. But most will start sunday clear and chilly. Temperatures widely in single figures, low single figures in the countryside, and close to freezing in the coldest parts of eastern scotland and north east england where a touch of frost is possible to begin the day. So, its chilly on the start line at the great north run in the morning, but after that, with a mixture of cloud and sunshine, the temperature is not going up too far too quickly. Perfect conditions for running. Good luck to everyone taking part. Light winds too. For the rest of us, sunday is looking like this england, wales, eastern scotland lot of sunshine, some patchy cloud around. Maybe an isolated shower, more so towards the coast of east anglia, maybe the far east of kent, though most stay dry. But in Northern Ireland, northern and western scotland, because of that weather front we saw earlier, its a cloudier day and you may encounter a bit of light rain and drizzle, not amounting to too much, mind you. Temperatures on a par with what we had on saturday, but feeling a little warmer. Parts of eastern scotland along that north sea coast of england despite the chilly start. Now, anyone hoping for rain on the final day of the test match at old trafford will be disappointed. Another rather cool, but dry day is on the way. But there is some rain moving in, but its coming in on sunday night and into monday, as this system comes in from the atlantic. So, as that comes in, it brings in more cloud so it will be a milder start on monday morning with the exception of easternmost parts of england staying clear overnight, so still quite chilly here to begin the day. So, during monday then, were going to take outbreaks of rain a little further east, but more persistent and heavier at times into wales, South West England and not much reaching eastern parts of england. As for temperatures, around about the mid teens, it is going to be a cooler feeling day. Now, that weather system dies a death as we go into tuesday, but here comes another, and actually, this is what is left of Hurricane Dorian getting close to iceland. But with trailing weather fronts that are coming into the uk, nothing to worry about from that. Yes, therell be some rain, the winds will start to pick up as well and therell be further western systems coming in as we go deeper into the week. So, wet at times, not all the time, turning windier too, perhaps a little bit warmer towards the end of the week. This is bbc news. Welcome if youre watching here in the uk or around the globe. Im simon pusey. Our top stories a Senior Member of the british government, amber rudd, has resigned over brexit in a new blow to the prime minister, borisjohnson. The conservative party is such a force for good in government in this country no longer has a place for people who have different views on the European Union and i cant stand by that. Peace negotiations between the taliban and the United States have been called off. In a tweet, President Trump blames a deadly attack in the afghan capital, kabul. The released iranian tanker is apparently spotted off the syrian coast. Britain says its deeply troubled by the reports. 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