Glamour and Talking

Here are some disorganised ramblings about talking and beauty. 

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time talking. Both Monday and Tuesday, in fact, were hugely talk-focussed. Was in the Somethin' Else studios recording a new Audible Original Documentary (on Work Life Balance, coming out some time in 2020).

Also, I found out today that our Habit Change doco was one of the most downloaded things on the app last year, which is an utter delight. 

Got three episodes of the new Audible work-life balance documentary in the can, though - despite a rebellion by me and Dr Ash Ranpura, (my very lovely and generous neurologist/neuroscientist cohost), about the direction the producers had decided to take on the ‘children as a disruptive to work-life-balance’ episode. Fundamental flaw in their premise, I felt, and Ash wanted to make an argument for benign neglect. It was all lots of fun, but basically spent from 10am til 4pm talking without pause.

Which was actually good, if you consider that we’d been scheduled in from 10am til 6pm, so we got an early mark. That meant Ash could take a nap on the couch in the studio (as recommended in episode 3, which you will find out when it launches), and I had time to get into the Soho part of London city before peak hour and wander around staring at clouds before the Andy Zaltzman preview show at 7pm.

That was fun, and involved hiding behind some tiny curtains being the sinister and slightly disruptive voice of the “Dog of Doom” (as represented by a padlocked tea-chest on stage with a “beware of dog” sticker on the front) while Andy satirised the year in politics.

Then the lovely Paddy Gervers (the guitar one of Jonny and The Baptists) came by the venue for a post show water and chat about music for a project and I just can't quite believe that this is my life. 

The picture at the top is from a shoot I did two years ago for ETHOS, that included a bunch of these sort of romantic ones, and some of the more slick robot ones. I ended up choosing the slick robot look, but then I have all these left over, and I never really know what to do with glamorous pictures of myself. Comedy and glam-ness are an odd mix, as are intellectual-ness and glamness; I feel simultaneously embarrassed by glamour and attracted to it. 

While I know that a lot of my industry is about image, and that online presence requires a certain number of selfies, I certainly find it difficult to pursue seeking beauty/presenting myself as beautiful without an edge of irony or self deprecation. It's probably a combination of some or all of the below:

•  a lack of confidence in my looks; 
• a lack of conventional prettiness;
• modesty/ gruff Australian-tall-poppy-syndrome about self promotion;
• a resentment of the idea that we ought to be beautiful if we can help it; or 
• a feeling that I want to be taken seriously for my brain and that's somehow incompatible with the pursuit or elevation of feeling or looking beautiful.
  
  Too, there are few very successful models for the kind of public figure I'd like to be. People who get to be silly and smart at the same time. The ones that exist are mostly men, which isn't a big deal, because I've never really felt like I need to have the same junk as someone to admire them or want to tread in their footsteps. Whether that's from having a twin brother, or the privilege that my parents gave me by getting me a bloody good education, or whether it's from all the fantasy and sci fi and proper literature with male protagonists that I plunged my developing mind into. Either way, it's a high bar to aim for people to accept more than one facet to a public self. So if it's going to be a slog to convince people that I'm silly AND smart, why try to attach the additional element of beauty, when it's already something I feel ambivalent about. Better to strip the way you look away from it entirely.
  
  WHICH BRINGS ME BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF THIS POST, BECAUSE THAT IS WHY IT'S A FANTASTIC THING THAT MY MOST SUCCESSFUL WORK IS STEERING ME TOWARDS AUDIO!

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