Strike a pose

I’m so excited – I got a cheque, my first one, for £15 from IPC magazines for a reader’s letter about a TV programme!

This could be the start of Something Big. Better check out some off-shore accounts and get a professional photo to go with my bio, which needs some serious sexing up.

 For the magazine I sent a photo taken some time ago at the office Christmas party. I remember posing for it, thinking, pout, chin out, aim for the spotlight and look the other way from the group, to be different. It worked! The light shining from above magically bleached my wrinkle- free complexion and highlighted my blonde hair which, for once, behaved itself. That photo was propped up on the table of L., the PA sitting next to me, for ages.’ Don’t you look glam’ was the usual comment, and to the person who asked ‘Is that really you?’ I replied that yes indeed it was me but I don’t see that face when I’m brushing my teeth in the morning and often think ‘who the hell is that’ when I catch sight of it on the desk.

So I got my hair cut, not too short, and highlighted , not too blonde, and put on some slap, not too much now , go easy on the eyeliner and the blusher- don’t want to look like a Trollop . Alone in the house with my camera and mirror I then tried to strike a suitable pose: sultry, intelligent, thoughtful, mature rather than aged, with a hint of an enigmatic smile. God, it was difficult. Most of the time this manic raddled old blonde stared dumbly back at me in the mirror. Leonardo da Vinci really was a genius to pull off that Mona Lisa look. 

There is that photo of course which was taken on the cruise where my teenage son sulked solidly for days...but that’s a really, really bad story. What? Oh, all right then if I must, but, I warn you, it is definitely not funny.
Professional photographers haunt every cruise ship, although we quite liked the photo taken of us three at dinner. As we paid our £9.95, I pointed to my son’s beaming face in the photo and told the photographer ‘See that young man uncharacteristically smiling there...if there’s a prize for the most miserable g.. on this ship I nominate him’.

‘Oh’ he replied nervously, ‘is he your son or....grandson’?
'WHAT? GRANDSON! I can’t believe you said that. I’m going upstairs to throw myself off this ship right now!’
'Ummm, there’s always a mix of family members on a cruise and we can’t, um, always work out who’s who. Er, are you enjoying the cruise?’
‘I WAS, until now’ I thundered as we made our way, shell-shocked, to the dining room. That photographer never came near us after that.

Hmm, perhaps I should do a week of Eve Fraser’s facial exercises to tone up my face as ‘It is really the drooping and sagging of the facial muscles that has such an ageing effect’.

That reminds me of the Waitrose incident, many years ago. My eldest son was about six at the time.
That morning, reading Eve Fraser’s bible, I had religiously contorted my face for about twenty minutes in front of my dressing table mirror before setting off with my son for the Waitrose shop. Queuing in the aisle he suddenly started to pull the most extraordinary faces. Some in the queue looked on with empathetic pity while others moved nervously away to avoid any accidental kicking that might ensue from this nascent epileptic fit.

I hauled him over to the fresh meats aisle and hissed ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’
‘Copying you, from this morning’ was his innocent reply.

I gave up the gurning after that. Well, it didn’t improved Les Dawson’s complexion, did it?

Still no perfect photograph for potential publishers and here I am in the queue at Tesco, gazing vacantly into the middle distance, trying to remember if tomatoes were on my list...

Wait a minute! That’s it! That Greta Garbo moment when, in Queen Christina, she stands as a silent figurehead at the bow of the ship, the wind blowing through her hair, as the camera zooms in on the blank, enigmatic expression on her face. The film director had told her to think about”nothing... absolutely nothing.....I want your face to be a blank sheet of paper. ‘

Tomatoes..., nothing..., the same thing...

 Quick, quick, "Mr. De Mille, I'm Ready for My Close-Up."