I have a confession...

[You can listen to the below, as live on BBCR2, here]

For the last few years, I’ve been a pescetarian, (like a vegetarian but I eat fish) – and I can be, admittedly, fairly vocal about my diet choice. So, I was delighted to discover that Sir David Attenborough became pescetarian last year; and surely he’s the guy to follow when it comes to protecting wildlife and the environment? (I must be in with the right crowd.)

But why have I dragged Attenborough away from the beauty of our blue planet and into my confession?

Well, you can imagine my horror when – at 10 weeks pregnant – shopping for a lunch party with friends, I found myself irrepressibly drawn to the smell wafting from… the two rotisserie chickens in my trolley. Thankfully, some self-restraint was shown as I managed to wait until I was home to rip open one of the bags and – after years of meat free life - tear off a bit of chicken and start chomping.

My husband found this so amusing that he quickly got out his phone and filmed my moment, or five, of chicken fueled weakness. Not a video I’m particularly proud of but hopefully a blip I can put down to the crazy cravings of pregnancy.  

Now I’ve told you though, does confessing help? Yes – I believe it does. The guilt begins to leave you. It’s almost shared. Because, once you’ve done the deed – there’s no going back. The chicken is forever eaten! What else is there to do, but confess? I love this quote from Ghandi: “Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.”

With all the unrealistic ‘New Year, New Me’ resolutions being bandied around, confession is the ideal secret weapon and antidote. Perfection is impossible – yet consistent admission of when we’ve got it wrong genuinely is achievable. The Latin writer Pubilius Syrus wrote in one of his moral sayings: “Confession of our faults is the next thing to innocence.”

So I’m going to aim for that – ‘fessing up when I’ve messed up… Sorry Sir David – but now you know!

The Spirit of Christmas | The Unexpected / Heightened Senses

[You can listen to the below, as live on BBCR2, here]

On Saturday night, I was out with some friends for our Christmas celebration. We have a bit of a routine going now. A pub, followed by dinner and then onto a karaoke booth. We pepper our, this year Turkish, meal with several rounds of a specially devised quiz (thanks to one particularly talented pal) – and of course, things get rather competitive.

Favourite rounds include General Knowledge, Best of the Year, and the hilarious Face Fusion – where we struggle to identify pictures of ourselves that have been merged with famous faces. But last weekend saw the arrival of a new, and unexpected addition: the sensory round.

So, how does it work? Well, two people sit blindfolded across the table from each other and race to identify the mystery object placed in their hands – using any sense except their sight.  

It was a pretty messy business that invariably involved chunks of edible items flying across the restaurant as opponents tried to feel, taste or smell their way to Christmas party victory.

I soon found myself head-to-head with Dom, an accomplished chef and pub owner. We each unwrapped a small glass jar. Yells of “Open it! Smell it!” ensued, and before we knew it - having vigorously shaken the contents all over ourselves, we were howling the names of various kitchen herbs.

Anticipating a major defeat - surely Dom’s culinary nasal palette was far more refined than my own – I screamed ‘OREGANO’, whilst his now infamous cries of ‘HERBES DE PROVENCE’, fell on deaf ears.

Victory was mine. An out-of-the-blue triumph that saw us revelling in the joy of the totally unexpected…

For me, the spirit of Christmas is one of great unexpectedness. The nativity itself sees the unlikely arrival of God’s climbing down; of coming as a vulnerable baby amidst the poverty of a lowly stable.

The author, G. K. Chesterton wrote, “Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.”

So, may your heightened senses at this magical time of year see you relish the paradoxes, the surprises, and those unannounced ‘memory-bank moments’ in your own lives – and, whatever sense you’re using - best of luck to you and your respective teams for any upcoming festive games!

Merry Christmas! 

Good Morning Britain

Catch up on my appearance on ITV's Good Morning Britain this morning. Discussing the new guidelines from the Church of England re gender identity and trans/biphobic bullying in schools with Piers and Susannah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruT9L-j0_5o

CALL BARRY! (& serenity...)

I’ve never been particularly gifted when it comes to directions or map reading. I probably should have made this clearer when I embarked upon the expedition for my Duke of Edinburgh Award. My poor group, staggering beneath bursting rucksacks, mistakenly gave me the role of leader. I foolishly agreed, hoping that my inner explorer would soon be revealed - a classically optimistic teenage move.

Ever the townie, I stuck to the main roads - avoiding the trickier smaller paths. With nothing but a map and a compass to guide us, it soon emerged that my grasp of a moral compass was rather better than that of the small plastic device now resting upside down on the ordinance survey map. Was it along the corridor and up the stairs, or were you meant to do the stairs first? I can never remember. Four hours later we were back at the stream we’d passed several hours earlier and I realised we were completely and utterly lost. Combine this with the realisation that snack supplies had finally run out and you can picture the scene – morale was low!

A change in approach was needed. Barry, was the school caretaker who had come along to help with the weekend, and more crucially drive the minibus. Breaking the rules completely, and throwing all compasses to the wind – particularly the moral one – I pulled out my mobile and put in an urgent call to Barry. Within minutes, we were all aboard the bus and being delivered to a more reasonable distance from the night’s campsite. (The teachers would never know!)

Though my reliance on Barry is probably not what the Duke of Edinburgh had in mind when he set up the scheme in 1956, (and of course I’m not advocating such behaviour to any aspiring D of E participants… don’t think you could get away with it these days) it offered the help we needed, moving us along our journey and enabling us to complete the weekend (almost) independently.

Changing direction or simply changing approach, can aid us in both our growth and achievement. As the Theologian John Henry Newman once said, "to change is to grow, to change often is to become perfect."

The serenity prayer, which you may already be pretty familiar with, perfectly encapsulates the distinction between when it is best to continue along the same path with the same approach, and when it’s best to (as it were) call Barry... 

“Grant me the serenity, to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

Teachers = Angels | World Teachers' Day

My script for BBC Radio 2's Pause For Thought segment on the early breakfast show with Vanessa Feltz. Broadcast live on 27th September 2017. 

We can all think of people who’ve unexpectedly inspired or helped us. The very best of these do so without expecting any praise. Angels you could call them.

So often its teachers that step up to the mark, appearing angelic despite the obvious lack of wings or long robe – unless you happen to go to school at Hogwarts!

Now a teacher myself, I often think back to those that taught me and feel incredibly grateful for the effort and care they put in behind the scenes. Ok, I probably didn’t; realise it at the time, but some of the characters that come to mind directly altered the path I pursued – whilst others simply provided funny sayings that still make me smile today. On reflection, my history teacher was right…. Yes, my glasses are ALWAYS filthy!

My husband Oscar, recently travelled to Tanzania to make a documentary about the persecution faced by people living with the genetic condition, albinism. There he met a teacher, Madame Molly - and she’s become a bit of a legend in our house! Though technically a teacher, Molly doesn’t just teach, but acts as a guardian and protector for the children with albinism at her school who are likely to be attacked so their body parts can be used in witch-doctor’s potions. Madame Molly has been a particularly remarkable figure in the life of 15-year-old Festo. Having lost his right arm in an attack, he became understandably traumatized and withdrawn, but also worried about whether he’d be able to continue drawing and painting despite his injuries. Under Molly’s guidance, loving but firm (you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her) Festo is now back on track, loved by his classmates and still heralded as the best artist in the school. Amazing. 

Madame Molly encapsulates the essence of a verse in Philippians that says we ought ‘not look to our own interests, but to the interest of others’. Be angels.

Heroes like Molly remind us that true goodness can come from the unexpected. Michael Angelo, the famous sculptor, once requested a less than perfect stone for his next creation. The stonemason didn’t want him to have it – it wasn’t a good enough stone in his opinion. Angelo told him: “There’s an angel in there and I can set it free.”

Dignity | Pause for Thought | BBC Radio 2

Karaoke is a controversial social divider. Some, showing what I consider to be an extraordinary amount of self-control, refuse to renounce their dignity (even for an hour or two) and drop the mic, opting out of the belting, off-key antics altogether. Others, contrastingly, happily surrender to the (hopefully) soundproof walls, putting their faith in the unwritten mantra of; “what happens in the booth, stays in the booth.”

In fact, at my father-in- law’s 40th birthday party, a decent chunk of his friends left once the karaoke man arrived with his machine and lyric screen; their dignity remaining intact. Interestingly, I have no such story of my own to evidence this sort of aversion to karaoke – clearly I hang around with a much less dignified bunch.

Women are often informed by their midwives as they go into labour; “you leave your dignity at the door”, but - rather crucially - are comforted with the closing line, “you’ll pick it up again on your way out.”

I think most of us recognise that we have a deep-seated, human hunger to be treated as something of value, as somebody who is dignified. But I think we also realise that this isn’t necessarily possible, or indeed even desirable, for the entirety of a lifetime. There are moments, nights, phases, transitions in which our dignity is left very much at the door. Our salvation must lie in the hope that we will, hours, days or weeks later, pick it back up again.

For it’s the things that matter to us most, that we love most, that are so often the cause of our shedding of dignity. Be it a messy break up, a hot-headed argument, fighting passionately for a cause we have great conviction in or even – dare I say it – an unquenchable thirst for a proper sing-song with our mates.

Best Advice | Pause for Thought | BBC Radio 2

[Broadcast 07/07/17]

Social media has many uses. For me, it plays a vital role in keeping me connected with people I wish I saw more of but am not able to due to conflicting geography, time zones or, as is most often the case, busy work schedules.

Alongside this handy benefit of the countless platforms so many of us have signed up to, sits the omnipresent reality of countless pictures of brunches, lunches and other edible treats. I’m looking at you, avocado on toast - one of the worst offenders.

Nestled in amongst the perfectly runny poached eggs, however, sits a more thought-provoking contributor.

Hashtag ‘inspirational quotes’ has had over 3 million posts on one of the most popular social media apps and its abbreviated counterpart hashtag ‘inspo’ has had over 7 million.

In an increasingly secular Britain, I often wonder where people get their moral, spiritual, motivational, perhaps even religious nutrition from. Who or what gives us our best advice? I’ve come to thinking that a partial answer to this question (for perhaps some people)  might be, somewhat surprisingly, via a regular thumb scroll through online feeds.

Whether it’s reading inspirational stories, receiving answers to my questions, posting work orientated goals so as to make sure I’m on track or even just using it to recharge when my brain has reached max capacity for the day – social media can be one giant, virtual agony aunt, administering advice and a place of retreat, all from the comfort of the device in my hand.

The Buddha’s dharma has enjoyed its fair share of attention. With its focus on seizing and relishing the day - by practising mindfulness, and its anti-consumerist message - thanks to the teaching of non-attachment, its appeal to us in 2017 is hugely understandable.

On securing your own happiness, the Buddha taught: “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment”, and on contributing to the happiness of others, he said: “thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of that candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

Hashtag; thank you, O smart phone.

Festive Food (Eid) | Pause for Thought | BBC Radio 2

[Broadcast 30/06/17]

My latest food fad revolves around a relationship with a sweet, sticky delicacy. They are one of the oldest cultivated fruits in the world - first being eaten as early as 4000BC in Iraq. In the Koran they are one of the ‘fruits of paradise’ and closer to home, today’s clean eating food bloggers whizz them up in smoothies, cake mixtures and even transform them into natural caramel. You might’ve guessed it - I’m talking about the much loved medjool date.

Whilst I, quite happily and absentmindedly, can munch through a few of these beauties in a day, it was on a recent trip to Israel that I realised just quite how much effort goes into their subsequent arrival in my breakfast bowl. In an almost biblical scene, the medjool plantations boast towering date palms stretching as far as the eye can see. Trees need serious irrigation - around 1,000 litres of water a day – thanks to summer temperatures reaching up to 40 degrees and next to no rainfall. The dates are picked by hand with trucks used to elevate workers right into the centre of the trees (a lofty 65 feet above ground), each with the goal of locating perfectly moist dates. No mean feat! There is certainly a great deal of effort and ritual that goes into the harvesting of my favourite date.

Medjools, whilst enjoying their recent surge in popularity, have traditionally played an important role in the breaking of the Ramadan fast each evening. Whilst Eid of course is the ultimate breaking of the month-long fast, Medjool dates represent a daily glimpse of that light at the end of the tunnel.

Whilst we’re all too familiar with celebrating the pleasure of eating these festive foods, the cultivation or preparation of them is so often overlooked. We dread it, often passing the buck on to someone else. Yet the chopping, mixing, pouring and picking of celebratory food is a vital part of the occasion that we mustn’t dismiss.

We’ve learnt many things from the nation’s most loved baker, Mary Berry – not least how to avoid a soggy bottom - but perhaps most poignantly, the crux of her recipe for life; “cooking and baking is both mental and physical therapy,” she tells us. Now, if only I could find the ritual in peeling potatoes…

The Longest Day (Midsummer) | Pause for Thought | BBC Radio 2

[Broadcast 23/07/17]

Much to my joy, we’re currently enjoying long, warm days and short, mild nights. BBQ’s have seen a bit of action and the freezer, previously home to a frozen pizza or two, now houses ice creams, lollies and the like.

Whilst the summer season organically extends our days for us, we too are able to warp our concept of time to stretch out our favourite days. They come to mean more to us, ever expanding in our memories, than other 24 hour periods.

I’m thinking particularly of my wedding day. A day that, in my mind, seemed much longer than many of my other days spent on planet earth. I got married on the 6th June – D-Day. The Oxford Dictionary definition for D Day reads: the day on which an important operation is to begin or a change to take effect. That is certainly one way of putting it.

The 1962 epic war film, The Longest Day recounts the D-Day landings at Normandy - the turning point in WWII. Whilst the battle may have been long in an objective, watch-orientated sense, the sense of its length is truly located in its sheer importance; so much depended on that day.

This week marks the celebration of Midsummer, the period of time centred on the summer solstice. Whilst Midsummer was once traditionally celebrated with bonfires, feasts and general merrymaking, since the Reformation we’ve let the whole thing slip. Except, amazingly, in Cornwall!

On a few high hills in those holy lands (where, my own marital D-Day took place coincidentally) the midsummer celebration of the longest day still takes place; serving as a reminder to me that we can eek out the very best of times. Just remember, what a difference a day makes!

Under Pressure | Pause for Thought | BBC Radio 2

[Broadcast 16/07/17]

During my A Level exams, I managed to make a rather rookie error. The pressure I was under had clearly become too much, and for the duration of my History paper, I was unfortunately unable to decipher between the two revolutions that took place in Russia in 1917. Though I skipped out of the exam feeling as though I’d put together a strong essay, my smile quickly turned somewhat upside down upon hearing class mates mention the month of February a few too many times. My essay, shall we say, had been more October focused. Yes, I’d managed to write about the wrong Russian revolution. Oops.

Fast-forward to the retakes the following January, I found myself re-sitting that offending paper – this time ensuring I didn’t muddle the months – and securing the grade I needed for the next step along life’s path. A momentary blip that provided a useful learning opportunity for me: slow-down, focus, and pay attention to detail. These are phrases that students coming out of external exams will no doubt have recently reiterated.

How our brains respond whilst under pressure is a fascinating subject. One that we’re still learning more about even today. Stress was once of course an extraordinary survival mechanism, enabling us and other mammals to react quickly to life-threatening situations. The instantaneous hormonal changes and physiological responses helped us to choose between taking flight or staying put for the fight. And though our triggers may not be quite so life concerning today (no matter how tight the deadline or stationary the Friday traffic) stress is still that useful tool for us, if we learn how to harness it correctly. A recent study tracking 30, 000 adults over eight-years has confirmed that if you simply view stress differently, - in a nutshell, more positively – you can alter the effect it has on you.

In one of St Paul’s letters to the early Christians he says; “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” It seems to me Paul's pointing out that what I fill my mind with, profoundly affects me. Choosing to think about the right things is a spiritual endeavour.

I must choose then, actively, not to stress. Though, conversely, a little bit of the S word may in fact be beneficial - as, in the words of the late George S Patton: "Pressure makes diamonds."

Proud-of-my-husband moment | Born Too White BBC TWO

This week has been a big one for my husband, Dr Oscar Duke. His documentary, Born Too White, aired on BBC Two on Thursday 23rd February at 9pm. You might have caught him chatting on Radio 1's The Surgery with Gemma Cairney, Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show, Radio 4's Midweek with Libby Purves or spotted him on the BBC Breakfast sofa discussing the subject matter of his film - the discrimination, mutilation and murder of people with Albinism in Tanzania and Malawi. Born Too White is a powerful, informative and emotional watch and I'm exceptionally proud of him for developing, pitching, securing a commission for - and finally making - the film. No mean feat!

Here's Oscar's accompanying blog for The Huffington Post and a nudge to head over to iPlayer to catch this one of a kind documentary.

BORN TOO WHITE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08g8p7s/this-world-born-too-white

Oscar has worked closely with Standing Voice (a charity tackling the social exclusion of people with albinism in Tanzania), in the making of Born Too White. Should you wish to make a donation, the link is here: http://www.standingvoice.org/donations

Over to my other half... 

"When we’re born, the world meets for the first time a genetic cocktail, expertly mixed together with equal measures from the store cupboard that is our Mum and Dad’s DNA code. We all know which bits of our genetics we’re proud of, and probably have some bits we’d rather upgrade, particularly in the airbrushed, filter swapping, image cropping, media world we find ourselves in today. When I was born, one of my less high-spec genes coded for albinism, a genetic condition causing a failure in melanin production - a vital pigment responsible for colouring skin, hair and eyes. People with albinism, or, ok I’ll say it, ‘Albinos’, have significant visual impairment, white skin and very fair hair.

At birth, my parents were told I would not be able to attend a mainstream school and were given lists of the things that my visual impairment would prevent me from doing. Nobody ever suggested that there’d be ample Hollywood career opportunities to play an evil albino monk in the Da Vinci Code and certainly nobody dreamed I’d end up as a doctor working for the NHS.

If I’d been born in some parts of Africa, things would have been very different. Imagine the shock for a couple, who both have black skin, when they give birth to a white child. Genetics wasn’t a prominent feature on the school curriculum and so they’ve got to try and explain to the rest of their community why their baby was born ‘too’ white. Unluckily, the local witchdoctor has an answer. Propagated over many generations, there are beliefs that the body parts of people with albinism can be used in potions to bring luck and fortune.

Albinism is quite rare in the UK with around 1 in 17,000 people being affected, but in parts of rural Tanzania, as many as 1 in 1,400 people have albinism. Here they are vulnerable not only to bigotry but also mutilation and murder. In the last ten years alone there have been 170 attacks on people with albinism in Tanzania, 70 of which were fatal. Many are killed for their body parts, which are believed to have magical powers. If you can provide body parts for use in such potions, you’ll be rewarded with thousands of dollars, with whole bodies said to fetch up to 75,000 USD. NGO research has suggested that attacks on people with albinism increase around the time of general elections when, it’s alleged, luck potions are purchased by those hoping for political power and glory.

Horrified by this discovery and unable to believe that this was still happening today, I travelled to Tanzania and Malawi, with cameras in tow for a new BBC TWO documentary, Born Too White. I wanted to meet the families who’d fallen victim to these cultural beliefs and to confront the people responsible for abducting, mutilating and murdering fellow humans because of a fault in their genetic makeup. As the burning African sun attacked the back of my neck for the first time, I realised another reality faced by Tanzania’s population of over 16,000 people with albinism. Sun related skin damage is rife, with reports suggesting that only 2% of people with albinism live beyond the age of 40 due to the astronomically high risk of skin cancer.

For the first time in my life I met huge numbers of people with albinism. Visiting the vision and skin cancer prevention clinics set up by UK charity, Standing Voice, I was struck by the openness with which attacks were discussed and the daily struggle faced by so many living with the condition.

Children with albinism are locked away in protectorate centres for their own safety, often disowned by their families with little hope of support or future life success. Spending the day with 15 year-old schoolboy Festo, who was targeted at the age of 7 and lost his left arm and most of his right hand in the vicious attack, will be etched in my mind forever. Despite severe visual impairment, loss of both limbs and untold psychological trauma, he was smiling, 3rd in his class and had mastered talents well out of my reach!

After much high-level negotiation, I was granted access to Malawi’s notorious Maula prison, to come face to face with the men held on remand for the latest murder of a person with albinism. With just Satan or the promise of huge financial reward as excuses for their actions, the disregard for life of this marginalised community in a culture of extreme poverty was harrowingly stark.

When times are hard and cultural belief so strong, the genetic lottery has never been such a high stake game. As I start to think about having children of my own and the possibility of passing albinism to the next generation looms, I cannot help but feel so grateful that in the UK, at least, the accepted spectrum of ‘normal’ continues to widen. After all, how ‘normal’ are you?"

Colour-in and chill out | My 'Morning Stories' segment for Sky News 'Sunrise'

The colouring book has entertained children for generations - providing a gentle, non-challenging, activity to while away the hours. Now, colouring books are enjoying a resurgence - with three of this week’s top sellers on Amazon being colouring-in books for grown ups.

So why are those well into double figures sharpening colouring pencils and staying neatly within the lines? 

Well, colouring-in helps us de-stress and self-express – with some books even labeling themselves as art therapy. 

The sudden surge in adult colouring-in has been somewhat attributed to our current fascination with mindfulness - a form of meditation, which at its simplest involves focusing on the present. These books let us get lost in magical worlds and designs, providing an old-school opportunity to switch off. They don’t involve phones, tablets or computers - and with the average Brit spending a depressing 6.7 hours staring at a screen each day, this is a refreshing feature.  

Experts say that colouring-in calms an over active mind due to engaging the brain enough to stop it whirring but not so much that the concentration is draining - but I have a feeling that it works simply because it makes us feel like kids again. 

So why don’t we show our true colours and dig out those crayons to reveal the big kid inside all of us. Silver lining, you might just feel a little more chilled out in the process.