May you live in interesting times ..

The title of this little post is a curse in China. It means may everything change, be different, challenge you, shake up the status quo and be - well - interesting!

I always thought I had led quite a simple life really - possibly a bit dull but generally happy, typically far away from the interesting times the Chinese curse about. But today I was asked to do a potted biography and to list a few interesting things about myself. And it transpired I have actually done one or two quite interesting things ...

I did the CV type stuff, you know, I've worked in the business I am in for 25+ years. Listed a few clients, then thought oh yes, I used to live in Hong Kong. And also briefly in Vietnam. That's quite interesting I guess.

Then, staring out onto my lovely garden, I chewed my pencil some more & racked my brains & remembered ...

I sang backing vocals on a Samantha Fox single in the late 80's - a track called I Promise You .. boyfriend at the time was a record producer & they needed a backing singer pronto so I was wheeled in!

I had a job as a hand model when I was in Hong Kong .. I held chopsticks for a print ad!

I am a fully qualified scuba diver & have done wreck diving in Bermuda & dived the coral reefs off the Cayman Islands & Tiomann Island.

I've appeared on prime time TV - I was interviewed by Fiona Philips on GMTV in 1999, we were discussing advertising cars to women - and specifically a Citroen ad where Claudia Schiffer was naked!


And there's more ... I was taught to dance by Holly & Paul from Frankie Goes to Hollywood ... have been a vegetarian for 34 years ... I once 'broke into' the rooftop pool of a hotel in Barcelona at 5AM & skinny dipped ... I have had a machine gun pointed at me through a car window when I was in Russia, en route from Rostov on Dom to Krasnodar  .... I have had my taxi break down in deepest Malawi & had to pay for the puncture repair by letting the locals touch my skin (they had never seen anyone as white as me before! I was fuming as I thought I had a lovely tan!) .. I was hit on by the boss of MTV when I was at a big awards ceremony in Mumbai (I was oblivious, it had to be pointed out to me) and I once slept in Michael Hutchence's bed (sadly he wasn't there too).