Life Changing Times

But I’m not yet allowed to say anything about it – I mean the content, since I’m clearly saying something now

So why am I writing a blog post then, you may ask? My answer, as to most of my life, is ‘because it seemed like a good idea at the time’

I’m off tomorrow to spend from 7.30am to 8pm at some studio in London, where I will apparently be filming two slots, lasting about 2 hours each. One alone and one with another person

They will also be doing filming of me coming into the studio – ‘oh, said I, like in Masterchef?!’ It’s the only vaguely reality thing I’ve ever watched.

And they they will also be doing ‘hero’ shots. Yes, that is apparently what they are called – I asked if I had to look like superman (with no boobs, superwoman’s costume wouldn’t fit). At this point I felt a trickle of anxiety from the producer, making a mental note to ask who exactly cast me.

A couple of people have asked me if I’m nervous and weirdly, I’m not. This type of thing is right up my street because it’s a topic I’m passionate about. I would be nervous – in fact, likely wouldn’t be doing it – if I was talking about nonsense. Because I know I would come across really badly. Not a shock to those who know me, but I don’t do fake well at all.

I was also told they would do hair and make up. One time when I was on TV before – does that sound pretentious enough – I was recording live from Lebanon. where they insisted on doing hair and make up.

I had done a lot of media for Save the Children, on Somalia and then on Lebanon/Syria. Again, I was passionate so I did it well. Hair and make up had never featured – I was talking about famine and war, my hairstyle was not the issue.

Not the case in Lebanon, where there were plastic surgeons offices above UNICEF ones and where cosmetic surgery was a rite of passage, not a luxury.

I rock up at 4am…exhausted and with a bad dose of bronchitis – face lovely and puffy from the steroids I was taking. For my lungs, not my muscles. I was doing a piece for ITV, I think it was, and they wanted me to film from a studio in Beirut. Soon after I arrived, hair and make up people arrived – who I think had been called in as an emergency when the studio saw the state of me.

So they set to work and I was too tired to argue. I duly did my piece to camera for the news clip and then went to the office.

The wonderful Marion McKeone was working with me as the Media and Communications Director, having dragged her away from her home in Dublin some years back to join me in Somalia and then imported her to Lebanon.

When I entered the office she was cracking up laughing having seen the (very short) news appearance and then seeing me in the flesh confirming my new look. She told me, very accurately, that I looked like Myra Hindley (Google is your friend here).

Holy shit, she was spot on. It was stunningly awful – and I just hadn’t registered it. And of course, this is the one media piece that has remained on Google if you search me – 80% of the rest have faded away, but no, not this bloody one. It makes online dating a whole lot of fun….‘no, really, my dating pic is the accurate one, I promise’. Ffs.

So, I went and had my hair cut yesterday, very short, not allowing for any weird styling and I will be carrying a large bag of face wipes with me on Thursday just in case.