Holding Back the Years....

Sarah Burge, the self-styled Human Barbie has spent over £1/2millon on cosmetic treatments and surgery according to the Daily Express. The mother of three has racked up over 100 treatments in an effort to halt the aging process and now has the rather dubious honour of being a world record holder for cosmetic surgery.

She has admitted that she find going under the knife addictive and claims that she is not unhappy with her looks.

Over the years I have photographed a number of women who have had cosmetic surgery, and have to say that I find the whole thing very odd. Quite why anybody does it is beyond me. I've never seen anybody that looks natural or is entirely happy with the end result. (Stylists that I work with will agree; they have to hide the scars.) Usually there is an underlying unhappiness that they are trying to compensate for with the aid of surgery.

My advice..... don't do it.

Daily Mail article here.
Previous Daily Mail article here.
Licence Sarah Burge photographs here.

Last of the Family Silver...

Today, it has been announced that French state owned power company, EDF has bought British Energy PLC. EDF are planning to build another four power stations over the next decade. Not many years ago the selling off of Britain's nuclear industry to a foreign power would have been unthinkable, but considering every other utility and national industry has some element of foreign ownership, we should perhaps not be surprised.

One thing you can be sure of is that energy prices will not fall; currently EDF's UK customers pay £100 per year more for their energy than the French.

You may think it is odd that neither of the main political parties have raised questions over the bid. Perhaps this is due to EDF and related nuclear lobbying firms making donations to both Labour and the Conservative parties.

Interestingly it has also been noted that Andrew Brown, younger broth of Prime Minister, Gordon Brown is Director of Communications for EDF in the UK. One of Brown's key advisors is Ed Balls, whose father in law Tony Cooper, is a long standing nuclear lobbyist.

License British Energy photographs here

Wine, Women and Song...

Europe's oldest man, Henry Allingham is 112 today. He has jokingly said that the secret to his longevity is "cigarettes, whisky and wild women". His life has spanned six monarchs and has taken in 21 prime ministers.

Now partially deaf and almost blind, Mr Allingham, who was born in Clapham, London, now lives at St Dunstan's home for blind ex-servicemen, in Ovingdean.

Mr Allingham is the oldest surviving World War I British veteran, a founding member of the Royal Air Force and the last known survivor of the Battle of Jutland. In August 2005 he led the nation in the Lord's Prayer at the Cenotaph in London to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of World War 1. In 2003 he was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur.

Licence Henry Allingham portraits here.

The Cat Man....

As a rule men and dogs go together; women and cats go together. You may find the odd single chap who lives with a cat or two but it is generally not the case. And we've all come across the mad old dear who is surrounded by the things!

However, author, Tom Cox lives with six felines, and I should add, one woman. His latest book is titled, "Under the Paw, Confessions of a Cat Man" and is the subject of a feature in the Times. Nothing unusual in this you may think. The tricky bit of this assignment was that the Times2 section of the paper has recently undergone a redesign and I was asked to photograph said cats with studio lights and Tom incidental within the frame.

Now, getting six cats together in one place is difficult enough, let alone freaking them out with high powered strobes. Luckily, Tom hadn't fed them that day, so a group feed was decided on.  With food in the bowls the six were gathered together, remaining in place for long enough to get off half a dozen frames before deciding they'd had enough and disappeared back into the garden.

Getting it right was in all honesty, more by luck than judgement and enforced the old adage; never work with children or animals.

See Times article here.
Licence Tom Cox portraits here.

Salt and Vinegar with that...

For most of her life, Faye Campbell has eaten nothing but chips. One bowl a day washed down with glasses of milk.

For years it was just assumed that she was an extremely faddy eater, but Barts Hospital in London discovered that Faye was suffering from gastrooesophageal reflux. Reflux problems are common, affecting 18 per cent of otherwise healthy babies. 90 per cent of those affected will grow out of it naturally within the first year.

For sufferers such as Faye the condition is more distressing - the stomach sends strong acids back up the gullet and into the mouth. Faye had learned as a baby that food caused pain, and decided to do without. The only food she found acceptable was chips, although no one is sure why.


Daily Mail article here.
License Faye Campbell photographs here.

2007, In Review...

The year started with Steve Wright, charged with the murder of five prostitutes in Suffolk, pleading not guilty at Ipswich Crown Court. His trial will begin in January 2008.

February saw the first of the year's agricultural disasters to hit the Eastern Region with the deadly HN51 strain of Bird Flu being discovered at the giant Bernard Matthews' Turkey Farm. Over 160,000 birds were slaughtered.

In March a total lunar eclipse turned the Moon blood red. Lunar eclipses occur when the Sun, Earth and Moon are in a near-perfect line in space. The Moon travels through the long cone-shaped shadow the Earth casts in space. The only light that can reach the Moon's surface at this point has been refracted through our planet's atmosphere. This light takes on a red tinge - depending on the amount of dust in the Earth's atmosphere. The next visible eclipse is due on February 21st 2008.

The James Paget Hospital in Gorelston was caught up in a row that it had tried to cover up an outbreak of Clostridium difficile (CDiff) which had contributed to the deaths of 17 people. The deaths came to light when a member of the public contacted a national newspaper.

April saw Conservative Party leader, David Cameron arriving in Diss to great fanfare to rid the town of graffiti. The assembled media gather to record this momentous deed only to find Cameron and his entourage painting a wall that was, er.... devoid of any graffiti!

Lady Leicester held a grand car boot sale at Holkham Hall in May. Lord and Lady Leicester were downsizing due to leaving the magnificent 18th century hall for a farmhouse on the estate after handing over the day to day running to their son the Viscount Coke.

After 40 years of service, Eric Edwards retired from cutting reed and sedge on the Norfolk Broads. He will be sorley missed by newspaper photographers of whom he has provided endless features for. Eric kept the Broads traditions alive with his trademark smock, hat and neckerchief, and is one of only two reed-cutters in the Broads to still use a scythe. He famously told Magaret Thatcher she was 'doing it wrong' whilst giving her a lesson in stacking and dressing reed.

Gordon Brown moved next door in June finally ousting Tony Blair for the job of Prime Minister. The honeymoon of public opinion has been short lived after dithering over an election and various disasters with personal information, and the spectre of sleaze rearing its head. By the end of the year opinion polls were putting the Conservative Party firmly in the lead.

In July members of the Household Cavalry took their mounts out of the stifling heat of London for a little play on the Norfolk coast. The annual summer camp includes two days of exercises on the beach where cavalry charges in the surf mean most of the riders end up airborne.

Britain's Prison Officers locked down cells and walked out of work in August. The illegal strike action took the government by surprise and forced the Justice Ministry to seek a High Court Injunction to force the warders back to work.

Apocalyptic visions of the East of England under water last seen in 1953 as a storm surge in the North Sea failed to cause the predicted mayhem and destruction during November. In Gt Yarmouth where some of the worst flooding was expected surfers took to the sea taking advantage of the swell.

Dropping off this mortal coil was literary legend, Norman Mailer. His debut work, The Naked and the Dead, set in Japan during World War Two made his reputation as one of America's tough guys. He twice won a Pulitzer Prize for non fiction, married six times as well as keeping various mistresses and sired eight children.

Bird Flu reared its head once more with a free range flock on the Norfolk/Suffolk border being hit by the virus. 6,500 free range turkeys destined for Waitrose were culled. Poultry on surrounding farms were also slaughtered bringing a total cull of 22,000 birds.

Boss of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs Paul Gray resigned from office in December when the news broke that HMRC had lost two computer disks containing the personal details of 25 million child benefits claimants. Many commended him at the time for doing what so many officials in recent government have refused to do; taking responsibility for the failings of his department under leadership.

It was however a short lived spell in the wilderness. 13 days later he was back in full time employment in the civil service working for Sir Gus O'Donnell at the Cabinet Office, the very man he had tendered his resignation to.

Licence Ipswich prostitute murders photographs here.
Licence bird flu outbreak photographs here.
License C.Diff outbreak photographs here.
License David Cameron photographs here.
License Gordon Brown photographs here.
License Household Cavalry photographs here.
License Prison Officers strike photographs here.
License storm surge surfing photographs here.
License Norman Mailer portrait here.
License Paul Gray photograph here.

Coming to a Suburban Street Near You...

The production of cannabis used to be associated with far off places such as Morocco and Afghanistan. In the UK it is more likely to be grown here. Know as Skunk, and sporting a far greater hit then the resin varieties of yesteryear, (Analysis of recent homegrown hauls detected THC levels as high as 20%, nearly seven times higher than samples of imported resin, which used to be the predominant form of the drug on the streets, and typically contain around 3% THC,) it's big business and mainly run by Vietnamese gangs, and more often than not, run from a rented suburban home.

"A decade ago 11% of cannabis sold on the street was grown in the UK. "Now more than 60% is produced in Britain and we are currently finding two to three factories in London a day. This is a growing crime problem across the country." said a Police Inspector involved in raids in Hertfordshire. Due to Police in London cracking down on the farms, production has spread to counties around the UK.

Typically a house is rented from an Asian landlord in a perfectly ordinary suburban street, the windows blacked out, and nobody ever seen coming, or going. Inside is a very different story. The gangs tap into the electricity supply before the meter and rewire the house with heavy duty cable powering sodium lamps which provide sunlight to the crop. Looking after the needs of the plants is a 'gardener', often a young illegal immigrant, working from a recipe of daily feeding requirements with only cigarettes, porn movies and a buddhist shrine for company.

The raid I went on with Cambridgeshire police netted a crop worth £70,000. With a 12 week turn around for the 200 plants, this house had the potential to produce £750,000 per year. Lucrative indeed, and with very little risk for the gangs controlling the operation.

In Canada there was a similar explosion of Vietnamese controlled farms. The experience there suggests that methamphetamine is never far behind.

One organisation benefits from the Police raids; the local council receive the sodium lamps, to use in street lights.

Mail on Sunday article here.

Licence raid and cannabis plants photographs here.