Recent Music Video with myself and my daughter Millie Lamb

Body Image

 The reason for this shoot for me, was that I have had serious body issues for my entire life. Whether I'm six and a half stone or whether I'm ten stone the body issues continued. I was known by my family for not swimming when we went to the seaside - would never change in a communal changing room and at one stage stopped shopping for clothes to prevent seeing myself in the full length mirrors. 
Some of you may remember a programme which took a family member away for three months to work on their weight, nutrition etc. They always came back looking stunning. I remember thinking "Why can't that be me?"
Last year my hubby bought me a membership to a lovely gym. I therefore had to go. At first I only worked in the gym by myself. Next I bought a swimsuit and started to swim. Finally I began to have enough confidence to join in with some classes. With these changes came a confidence that I never knew I had. No longer did I have to hide in the cubicles of the changing room. Last holiday I wore a bikini for the first time in my life. My body isn't perfect but then, neither am I and who is? At 54 I am ok with what I look like but it is because I took charge of my body. Only I had the power to do that.
Nobody else could do that for me. So, the photo is about me regaining control of negativity.
The photo was taken a little while ago and yesterday I went to the studio to add some audio to the piece for the exhibition. A man was just leaving & we had a brief conversation & his parting shot was "Are you ashamed that you did it?" as I said I hadn't shown anybody. Thats why I am sharing the picture with you all. It is because I am proud that I have beaten the struggle with body image that I have had for my entire life and if I hide it away then what would be the point of having done it in the first place. So there you go - let nothing stand in your way - only you have the power to change whatever it is you need to change. Take back control (By the way for anybody wondering why the black tape is there, I know there are some friends who may get offended so hence the coverage. )
Picture by Aleksandra Karpowicz for her project "Lets Talk About Sex"

JIMMY EDGAR "DREAMZ COME TRUE"

Jimmy Edgars new video - with me !

https://youtu.be/WZi4XyyF7g0  via @YouTube

BCD, a cheeky comedy rap video

The Silent World

I'm sitting here today listening to Radio 2, listening to a programme about Council Cuts and the possibility of Library closures and the thought occurred to me - would anybody notice if their local  library closed down? After all, people can buy second hand books for as little as 50p from their local charity shops so  why bother taking out and returning books when they can be bought and kept?

Now, I'm an avid library user - I love spending an hour browsing through the shelves, marvelling at the titles and the author names plus  reading the introductions to the stories themselves. I love the fact that I can choose lots of books to take home and all for free. However, something has changed within the library sector of late and that is the horrible rise of the self-service. I can now go in to the library, return my books, take out more books and borrow DVDs without saying anything to a living person. 

What has happened to the lovely librarian who used to stamp the books and have a quick chat about the author and advising me  on other books that the author has written? They have been replaced by a machine. Apparently this is progress. 

At Supermarkets now, the self service check out has become the norm. Yes, there is usually a person somewhere in the vicinity of the checkouts to lend a helping hand but lets face it, it takes a brave person to man these with the amount of frustration that happens at these check outs. I suspect that is why it is normally a woman who is supervising them. Staff seem to get very frustrated when I decide I'd rather queue up and have someone else put my shopping through the checkout and talk to someone rather than risk the awfulness that can only be attributed to these decidedly deadly checkouts with the monotonous electronic voice.

Are we becoming an unsociable nation? Are we losing the interaction skills of ages past? Certainly manners are being lost with more and more people grunting their thanks or expecting people to respond to their requests without the word 'Please.' 

How about the electronic gaming devices where people can talk to people all over the world as they play against them? Some people are room bound for days and nights just so they can concentrate on their game play. 

This year, more people than ever will give their small children an ipad or a lap top. I wonder if it is because parents have lost the ability to play with their children, to give them time. Last night I watched a programme about people on benefits at Christmas. Their main priority was not to pay the rent or to explore ways of providing healthy meals but to give their children more stuff that they had no room for in the first place, presumably so that these children  could be kept quiet and out of the parents way.

It's very sad that we have become a nation of people that no longer want to interact in person with each other. The beginning of a silent world is starting and I for one, would rather live in a world where I can speak to people, have a laugh with people, listen to people rather than experience the dark cloud of non interactional  silence.

Perhaps with sharing my thoughts with you, we could start to begin to end the oppression of the silence and explode through the very walls of our own personal boxes of self imposed aloneness because in the words of a very well known advert, "We are worth it". 

Loneliness

Since joining  a group of singers, all of which eat music  for breakfast I was finding myself having immense  difficulty learning not only the melody but  the words of the choral sheet music required because not only do I not read music but I don't read Latin either...

One of the singers asked if I would like to meet up and go through the words so that I would know not only the pronunciation of the words but also their meaning. Although I had previously said Yes, I didn't really want to do it as it required some sort of effort on my behalf. Not only would I have to  get the car out, set the Sat Nav, find this persons house but I was in for a lesson of sorts and lessons of any kind can quickly turn me back in to a teenager finding excuses to bunk off whatever class I was supposed to be in. On the plus side, this woman, Beth seemed really nice and did only live a five minutes drive away. It was something I was dreading. I didn't want to do it because I didn't want to commit to it. I wanted to stay at home and work on the computer with the occasional pat on the head for the dog for company. Finally, the time came and I could put it off no longer so I grabbed my keys and headed out to find Beth's house. Actually, I found it very quickly because it turned out to be even closer than I thought! I knocked at the door, took a deep breath and when the door opened ventured inside. Beth had a bandage round her knee holding an ice pack and it turned out she had fallen whilst out shopping that morning rather badly and was finding it difficult to put too much weight on it. Well, that made me feel guilty - not only was she feeling poorly but Beth was still happy to help me out with the dreaded sheet music. We sat down on the sofa, got the music out and began going through each word and each piece of music with Beth first saying the word  and me repeating it. Next I had to decipher a piece by myself. I felt such a twit trying to work it all out and kept stumbling over the words but with Beth's encouragement soon began to almost enjoy working everything out feeling very pleased with myself when I managed to accomplish whole sentences in Latin. 

Finally it was over and I thanked Beth and stood to leave.

"Would you like a cup of tea?"

I almost declined but somehow I felt my mouth saying "Yes I would love some tea." What was I doing? I had already been there for over an hour and I certainly didn't want to do any more on the music. Sometimes I find that my brain becomes overloaded with too much information and acts like a wheelbarrow - it simply tips it out to make room for something else. I really wanted to hang on to the information because it was essential to me carrying on with the singers. I followed Beth into the kitchen and watched as she made a pot of tea for two. I smiled as Beth put the timer on the oven on for a few minutes so the tea would be perfect. That was a bit like her I thought, with everything having to be done the right way. Beth has never struck me as an emotional person but then,

"I am so pleased you came round today. If you hadn't I would have just sat here feeling a bit down and very fed up with just me to talk to. You've cheered me up no end."

You see, in my selfishness, I hadn't thought as to what effect it would have on Beth to not turn up.  In fact, to be honest, I had given her no thought at all. Beth is not an elderly,person and  not a typically lonely person as she works four days a week and here she was thanking me for keeping her company.

I have to say that this was a bit of an ice breaker in a way because we then sat down and chatted about anything that came to mind for a further hour and I enjoyed every bit of her company as Beth could be quite entertaining with stories of her grown up children.

So, next time you want to  cancel on someone, have a think about the other person and how they have put aside their time to see you and what possible effect it could have on them. I didn't know Beth was fed up and when I left she was thinking about joining me for my first venture  into a Samba band. I met  a good friend today and I am so pleased that I made the right choice in the end.