Latest 7 magazine

Sandra Omo looks back on a year in modelling with no regrets, no surrender

A good friend of mine surprised me this week by announcing she was giving up the modelling business for good. Boy, the news came as a big shock to me. I mean we had just finished an LFW show and having a celebration back stage when she popped in the news. Even as I write, I am still trying to come to terms with it.

Why is she giving up something as wonderful as modelling when there are thousands of people out there dying to become one? Well her reasons are that it has not been an easy ride for her (my dear friend, which profession is?), she has not achieved the things she expected she would have by now as a model (isn’t that why you should keep trying?), and she wants a family and modelling has not given her time for that. This last excuse I buy. After all, it’s responsible for us giving up a lot of things.

However, when I talked to her later that day, she candidly explained to me that she fears she would not make it as a successful model so it’s better to pursue something else now before it’s too late. I see. Her fears have had me thinking about things I have taken for granted. I mean, these are things that I have completely forgotten, or have not crossed my mind for long.

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Dani on the abundance of phobias and the fear of flying low in the modern age

I have developed a new fear. It only occurs when I am at work. I have no idea why but I am constantly worried that my flies are open. It is a new thing I am worrying about. I have no idea where it came from or why but it is irritating me slightly.

“We all run around, scared of random colours, odd-shaped vegetables and the length of words”

I can’t leave my desk without feeling like I have to check I am all covered. The funny thing is (well it’s not funny at all) is that I bet there is actually a name for that kind of fear. I am sure when my nan was little there were not half as many ‘named’ fears as there are now.

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Victoria Nangle has a chinwag with hot ticket of the festival and pin-up for the comedy girlies – Tim Minchin

Tim Minchin – award-winning comic, classical musician, big-word-user, swear-word lover and relocated Australian comic is on the line.

In describing his place in musical comedy he puts it simply: “I fell into comedy because I happen to be a songwriter that finds the humour or satire in lyrics.” In outlining his style he comments: “If you put me at a keyboard doing my songs that’s a totally different game from me sitting at a ten foot concert piano playing my songs.”

“It reflects well on society when ladies value a man’s brain over brawn in selecting their idols”

He elaborates: “increasingly what you’re doing is tipping your hat to a particular style and the juxtaposition is between style and content”. He’s a clever fella. So why do I ask him how he feels about his ever increasing popularity with student girls? He seems a bit stunned.

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Magic property

Lesbians, practising witches and estate agents are not unusual in Brighton. But what happens when the three all come together? Author and playwright Sandra Freeman has written a novel about two women who set up an estate agency with a little magic in their lives. The Wow Factor follows the pair as they get further entailed in the worlds of real estate and witchcraft.

Freeman lives in France but spent 30 years living in Brighton where she taught French and Theatre Studies at the University of Sussex and wrote, acted in and directed 20 plays. She is the author of four novels and of Putting Your Daughters on the Stage: British Lesbian Theatre from the 1960s to the Present.

She visits Brighton regularly and was inspired to write The Wow Factor after reading a local news story last year about a couple of practising Wiccans ‘coming out’ with their beliefs. She dropped the idea for a novel she was already working on in favour of writing about witchcraft.

She said: “The idea of ‘coming out’ really appealed to me. I thought, that is so typical Brighton because there has always been this undercurrent of witchcraft going on in Brighton and around the Downs.” Arming herself with a copy of The Wicca Handbook bought from a local magic bookshop, Freeman set to work finding out about magic.

She sought advice on the real estate industry from her friend Jonathan MacFarlane. The result is a light-hearted and intriguing tale of mystique and spell-casting, with shades of Tales of the City.

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