Oh, The Places You'll Go! (Plus the Bang-ups, Hang-ups, and Slumps)

In the winter of 2007 I flew 10,000 miles around the world to escape - from myself.

London’s chaotic pace had given me a sense of incompleteness. A busy life, a demanding career and a fast-approaching thirtieth birthday all contributed to a sense of anxiety.

I had contemplated working abroad and the dream was fading like an old photograph. So, I pushed aside my fears and booked a one-way ticket to Sydney, Australia. I was leaving in 5 weeks.

Those remaining days filled quickly with departures; farewell parties soaked with drinks and emotion. At Heathrow Airport, I left family with tears streaming down my face, entering into an unknown adventure.

On arrival, it felt like the holiday of a lifetime condensed into a few magical days. But as the jet lag vanished and the glitter settled, it was just me for company. I felt an overwhelming sense of panic, realising this was not a vacation and I had no concrete plan. I knew no one and although the blank canvas should have been exciting, it terrified me.

Exploring the sprawling urban paradise, I felt like a lost child instead of liberated. I ambled along sandy beaches painfully self-conscious in my own pale skin. My younger sister Michelle, a long-serving and very tanned Sydneysider was absolutely amazing, introducing me to her many friends, showing me all the magical sights and sounds that Sydney had to offer and surrounding me with excitement and opportunity. But I felt completely and utterly lonely. At parties I felt unusually shy, gulping down drinks and trying to find something worthwhile to say. My comfort blanket had been sharply pulled off my shoulders and I shivered with the exposure.

My CV painted a picture of someone I used to be in London, but did not reward me with a job. It rained uncharacteristically and relentlessly. My cash reserve was diminishing but the distance from home seemed to get wider every day. Galleries and museums provided solitude but I was drowning in desolation.

The anxiety of being judged followed me like a shadow. I knew people would question how I could feel this way in such a captivating place. I was lucky to have such a beautifully packaged opportunity but I could not find the confidence to unwrap the ribbon. So I searched for an explanation.

The realisation was painful. I was so heavily weighed down with issues I could not swim to the surface to breathe. Years ago, I had chosen not to accept my university place, a decision I regretted. I felt inadequate amongst the high-flying graduates in my life. I compensated by pushing myself too hard, my life overflowing with people and activity with no room for self-reflection. Instead of celebrating achievements, I always felt I had not accomplished enough. These insecurities had boarded the plane with me as excess baggage.

I didn’t learn my lesson. Joining a local group, aptly named ‘Get a Life!', was an attempt to broaden my horizons. First, Book Club, but my fellow literature lovers were overbearing. I drank too much wine. I fought the urge to shout ‘I don’t even like Catch 22! I haven’t even finished it!’. I decided instead to Get a Life and excused myself to the bathroom and left. Quickly. Walking in the hammering rain, I rang home but my credit ran out. Sitting on the steps of the Opera House I sobbed, wet through to my knickers. I wanted to go home.

It got worse. A simple National Park trek turned Bear Grylls endurance test. I got lost and did not pass another person for 4 hours. My foot bled from an unexplained injury and my water ran out. As the sun set, I felt crippled by absolute fear. This time I had gone too far.

It was my epiphany. It was time to leave the destructive path I had chosen to follow for so long.

I changed. I found a flat and a job in the city. I rediscovered yoga and indulged my infatuation for fashion in markets and vintage boutiques. I explored, I made friends, and I laughed a lot. Life began to sparkle again like the sun shimmering on the ocean. I saw my surroundings in dazzling Technicolour.

One afternoon in a second hand bookshop, I stumbled across an advert for a creative writing course. On enrolling, something finally clicked. I had a place to release all the thoughts, good and bad that swam around my head. Words spilled onto my laptop screen and filled endless notebooks.

I quietened the incessant inner voice that told me I was not good enough and allowed myself to feel a sense of accomplishment. I concentrated on building a portfolio of life experiences rather than worrying about a lack of academic achievements. I finally found solace in writing.

Those remaining days filled quickly with departures; farewell parties soaked with drinks and emotion. One night, a friend gave me a Dr. Seuss book called ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’. It struck me how accurately it reflected the journey I’d gone on; around the globe and in my head.

I returned to London changed, but not a finished article. There is still editing to do. As I learnt, you can be in the most remarkable place, but if you are living inside your head, you may as well be anywhere.

The experience has shaped me though, and made me realise what I have to do – stop regretting the past and start writing.

In moments of self-doubt I remember Dr. Seuss’ wise words. You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

Only I can decide where to go next.

Your letter was only the start of it.

The sad passing of Sir Jimmy Savile this weekend made me feel nostalgic for the good old days. The happy, carefree time that you ran around without responsibility or financial worries, when tea time TV ruled and your biggest decision was whether to buy cola chews or cola pips with the last of your pocket money.

Sir Jim regrettably was unable to Fix It for me to rollerskate with the cast of Starlight Express but he gave us all hope that if you put pen to paper and took the time to write a very polite letter in your neatest handwriting to the BBC your dreams may just come true.

Here's an nod to other memorable tea time TV shows and funny moments to brighten this late October Monday. Dig out your Jim’ll Fix It medal, brush down your Blue Peter Badge and be a part of it...

Trevor and Simon on Going Live! with some very welcome guests....

For all those who idolised Trevor and Simon, swang your pants and wanted to sit on the Sofa for Two with Three here’s a comedy classic with French and Saunders.

Saturday Superstore – Claire and Friends – It’s ‘Orrible Being in Love (When you’re 8½)

Claire’s entry beat a thousand other entries in the talent competition on Saturday Superstore and she even got to sing it live on Top of the Pops. A nostalgic journey for all those who were in love and had his picture on your wall and his name upon your scaaaarf...

Hello Rat Fans!

Roland Rat lived beneath Kings Cross Railway station in The Ratcave with Errol the Hamster and Kevin the Gerbil. Cool.

Bleurgh!

Mallett’s Mallet – I would have been humiliated by Timmy Mallet with a big pink hammer called Pinky Punky in a word association game just to win a copy of Hits 6 and get a Wacaday wacky plaster. Utterly brilliant!

5 Star on Going Live! and a very rude little boy...

But it didn't always go quite right....Who could forget when Eliot Fletcher called my favourite band up on Going Live to ask them a very rude question. Tut. I was personally upset – I was a member of the 5 Star Fan Club and my Mum even spoke to their Dad, Buster. That’s a true story.

Scouts on a Rollercoaster with food.

And finally, in honour of Sir Jim, a group of Cub Scouts from the 2nd Sutton St Mary’s troop, who wrote to the programme asking to have a meal in an unusual place. Jim opted to send them to ride the Revolution at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Classic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wwPeSDCCAs

Happy Monday.

The ultimate role model. Aged 4.

Catching up on Lauren Laverne's highly educational Grazia column Lauren Loves... this week I nearly squealed with joy on the tube. Leaping out at me amongst the music, book and deli reviews was a piece on one of my favourite fictional heroines of all time – Matilda.

As the tube accelerated along the tunnel and the blackness whooshed past me, I felt like I was travelling back through time faster than light. My destination, Downsview Primary School, Upper Norwood, London. The year, 1989.

This was the year I read Roald Dahl’s Matilda and was mesmerised by the story and Quentin Blake’s now instantly recognisable illustrations. I completely agree with Laverne when she describes Matilda as a feminist icon. She is a shy, softly spoken 4-year old prodigy whose giant intellect is stymied not only by her despicable parents and her beastly headmistress, but also by her gender.

Matilda is introduced to us by Dahl in the first few pages as The Reader of Books, both sensitive and brilliant - ‘her mind was so nimble and she was so quick to learn that her ability should have been obvious even to the most half-witted of parents’. By the age of 1 and a half she could talk perfectly using the vocabulary of an adult and at the tender age of 3 she had taught herself to read newspapers and magazines before moving steadily onto books.

A voracious reader, Matilda’s reading list at the age of 4 included Dickens, Brontë, Austen, Hardy, Wells, Hemingway, Steinbeck and Orwell to name but a few, which is enough to put any half-witted adult to shame. Including me.

Matilda is constantly told by her gormless and despicable parents, Mr and Mrs Wormwood, that she is worthless and stupid, and overlooked in favour of her very ordinary brother Michael who gets to know all the interesting stuff from his Dad about the crooked second-hand car business simply because he is a boy. Her Mum is no better, a platinum blonde with garishly heavy makeup who thinks ‘looks is more important than books’.

The villainous headmistress Miss Trunchbull, who once threw the hammer for Great Britain in the Olympics and uses children to practice on, deliberately holds Matilda back and observes that ‘a bad girl is far more dangerous a creature than a bad boy’ and ‘Nasty, dirty things , little girls are. Glad I never was one’. All of this leads to Matilda wanting to get her own back and she discovers a psycho-telekinetic power that allows her to move stuff around and spook out her parents and Miss Trunchbull. And this is where the fun really begins.

Dahl’s storytelling is mischievous and comic and Matilda is laugh-out-loud funny. The book contains all the usual Dahlian humour and gruesome words that we knew and loved (blisters, scabs, grubs to name but a few). Who can possibly forget the hat and the superglue, the boy who got his finger stuck up his nose and Bruce Bogtrotter and the chocolate cake? It’s also sprinkled with unexpected stuff that you can appreciate even more now you’re a ghastly grown-up; smatterings of Dylan Thomas poetry and a frightful episode involving her despicable father and a library copy of John Steinbeck’s The Red Pony.

Another reason why Matilda is so special to me is because my primary school class put on a production of Dahl’s classic for our last ever play. If my memory serves me correctly our pleas to our brilliant teacher, Mrs Mohtashemi (our very own version of Miss Honey) to perform Grease were sadly turned down due to budget and creative restraints (disappointing, but slightly ambitious to turn our school hall into the backdrop for an American high school complete with bleachers, a beach, a drive through movie and a fairground but hey, we were always told to aim high).

So Matilda it was and preparations began. Casting completed, Mums drafted in to do makeup and costumes, Dads on prop duty, and dress rehearsals out the way, it was time for the show. In what was to be Class Seven’s final production, we acted our hearts out and treated a packed audience (parents, siblings, teachers) to a rollicking musical production which brought the house down and had the audience crying with laughter. There were tears too; we were growing up and moving on to big school (which we all secretly hoped would be nothing like Crunchem High School and that there would be no such thing as The Chokey).

I nervously made my acting debut as Matilda, finally making the break away from previous roles such as Nativity Narrator and Recorder Player. My little sister Michelle opened the show as baby Matilda (wearing a nappy, which would never have been allowed in 2011 but was completely acceptable at the time. Sorry Mich.) Ben Crompton played Michael, playing up to the audience with painted on freckles and missing front teeth as he sucked up to my Dad and stuck his tongue out at me. David Whitcher was my miserly, mean crook of a Dad, accessorised with fake bald patch, garish jacket and tie and measly moustache. Devika Gayle played my Nan in Dame Edna-Everage glasses and chic pearls and bag and Sarah Watkins was the school nurse. Then there was Tessa Xioutas, totally splendid as my mum and surgically enhanced with the use of some very clever props and Dolly Partonesque hair.

Michael Norris was the great talking parrot Chopper, perfecting his talk and squawk to a tea in full rainbow-coloured feathers and tights. Christina was absolutely terrifying as Miss Trunchbull, even the parents were a bit scared, and brilliantly humiliated my fellow classmates throughout the entire production - a class that included Suzy Ackerman, Anthony Foulds (who gave an Oscar-worthy performance as Bruce Bogtrotter with the cake), Jenny McKinlay, Tansel Omer and Viresh Patel looking super cute in bunches (girls) and school shorts (boys).

Tania Gornall, Jonathan Duffel, Katy Fraser and Ryan El-Alfy (RIP, always) were grease-smudged mechanics at Wormwood Motors and did a hilarious and faultlessly choreographed rendition of ‘You Can’t Get Better Than a Kwik Fit Fitter’. Definitely not least, Demis Andreou was Doctor Procter in a suit and tie and the obligatory briefcase and Beena Savadia the poor Cook who played an unwilling part in the Bruce Bogtrotter incident.

My heart was broken into little pieces when Matilda finished its long serving theatrical run (1 night) and I left Downsview; leaving behind something so very special. A blissfully happy, innocent time full of fun and laughter and amazing classmates and teachers that I knew even at that age I'd find hard to replicate again in my life.

Fortunately, and rather uniquely I think, I’m seeing Mr Wormwood, my brother, some of the mechanics at Wormwood Motors, my Nan, Doctor Proctor, the talking parrot and the rest of the cast and crew again in 2012 for the next instalment of our Downsview reunion. We’re older and a bit more world-weary now, but it’s still magic when we meet.

Matilda left a lasting imprint in my mind - The book ultimately celebrates intelligence and good teaching but for me it conjures up a whole bunch of emotions just by turning the page.

Yesterday I purchased a fresh new copy of Matilda and I had to resist the urge to write Nicola Greenbrook-Kirby, aged 33 and 2 months in the inside cover in large childish scrawl. On the front cover is Matilda, sat atop a pile of books in a simple cobalt blue long-sleeved shift dress (a nod to minimalism and capturing fashion’s current flavour for the Sixties), the eponymous heroine who was on trend even at the age of 4. If you haven’t read the book since you were a little sprog or have never read it as a revolting adult, please do, you’re in for a real treat. Published in 1988, Matilda is the biggest seller amongst all of Roald Dahl’s books for children. In Britain alone, half a million paperbacks were sold within 6 months.

It’s a funny, warm and intelligent story which sends out an empowering and brilliant message that it’s ok to want to be clever and better and not have to look good, just because you’re a girl.

What a marvellous medicine to swallow.

RIHANNA ROCKS. Um, Really?

The November edition of UK Vogue has just landed on my desk with a thump, bringing with it the turn of the season and an army of delicious autumnal fashion to battle against the drop in the temperature. (Ok, that's a lie. I bought it myself from the crammed magazine kiosk on the Euston Road with £4.10 scraped together with the last 2ps and 1ps in my purse, but the former sounds much more glamorous and fashiony as befits the style bible).

Anyway I digress. Staring back at me defiantly from the sky-blue cover in Giorgio Armani Privé and short blonde wig was Rihanna. I felt disappointed. My usual enthusiasm deflated like a burst balloon.

Rihanna is a beautiful, successful and talented young woman at the top of her game and her Vogue debut has been highly anticipated – plus we all know celebrity sells magazines. I (only just) accept the fashion connection – her style evolution has been fascinating to watch and she steps out in all the right names. Finally, I applaud Condé Nast for recognising that not all Vogue readers are white, emaciated and from Notting Hill (although the cover comes not without some controversy - Alexandra Shulman has had to respond to the blogosphere and confirm that no skin lightening has taken place for Rihanna’s cover).

What I do have a considerable problem with is that ultimately I no longer consider Rihanna to be an empowering role model for women due to the tiresome onslaught of raunchy images and lazy and offensive lyrics we get from her. I am bored of the vulgarity – she may be bad but she’s perfectly good at being degrading.

Before I am accused of prudishness, I am not a prude. A couple of Rihanna tracks have been hanging around on my iPod for a while now and I can’t deny that I’ve probably danced along after a few drinks in a club. Plus, if men can talk openly about sex through the medium of music then why the hell can’t women? Madonna's been leading that battle for decades. As Dodai Stewart, deputy editor of the US pop culture blog Jezebel, points out, female artists are systematically encouraged to capitalise on their sexuality. "Female artists are definitely sexualised more often, which helps sell albums, but they're also criticised for being so sexual. Women can't win."

This may be true, but Rihanna is not helping the battle. On the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in April 2011 she is described as ‘Pop’s Queen of Pain’ and we are seduced into turning the page to find out about Sexting, Bad Boys & Her Attraction to the Dark Side. Yawn.

Jay-Z was photographed on the cover of the same publication in a suit and a tie. Much more interesting.

So, why has it got to be dirty and submissive to get attention? Rihanna says she is no role model and wishes people would stop trying to make her into one. In the Vogue article she says ‘people – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me and [being a role model] became more of my job than I wanted it to be’. Like it or not Rihanna, being in the spotlight and all the advantages of success bring some responsibility - women, especially young girls, are automatically looking up to to you (and men are looking you up and down).

To me, Rihanna continues to present an extreme portrayal of female over-sexualisation. You can’t escape the demeaning lyrics. When I see the music videos for ‘S&M’ and ‘Love the Way you Lie’ I don’t see art or something to admire. I see the glamorisation of domestic violence. Which is not romantic. It’s just ugly. Her new video for 'We Found Love'? Seen. It. All. Before.

It was Natasha Walter and Kat Banyard who last year were campaigning for a change in the law to stop the ‘pornification’ of society which they said promotes violence against women. Rihanna is hardly doing the cause any favours with her own take on pop porn. Is this really the message we want to send out to our future stars – wear less, shatter the boundaries and give the men what they want?

I persevered and read the Vogue article in full, searching for something other than raunchinessand I was surprised that she came across as quite endearing and earnest. She has sold over 60 million singles and 20 million albums and is also involved in many philanthropic projects, with her own Believe Foundation created in 2006 to help terminally ill children. So why don’t we see more of this rather than her backside?

So, that is why I am ultimately disappointed with the choice of cover for November. You can reserve this type of 'role model' for all the Zoo, Maxim and FHM readers; for the men who still think it’s acceptable to shout abuse at women in the street or grab women in a bar after a few too many drinks, thank you very much.

The December issue of Vogue featuring a strong, intelligent woman who cares about other women? Cheers. I’ll (Drink to That).

Do you have another opinion to add to the mix? Let me know what you think - I'm interested. Answers on a Facebook wall or in the comments box below please...