Raw Veganism Day 1

1 x Black Coffee

Whilst I've been trying to cut down on coffee for months, getting rid of the first one of the day has proven impossible.  I know many raw foodists eschew hot drinks but I have no intentions of making something that I know will be hard completely impossible.

1 x White Silver Needle Tea

This is my super-sexy loose tea mug.  It means I can brew lovely cups of fresh tea, without destroying the brew.  Each serving makes 4-6 cups of tea.  I love it.  This may be a sign I have well and truly left my partying, wild days behind me.....

I've made myself a "Crunch" Box to munch throughout the day.  Today's contains celery and chopped peppers:

There's roughly 4 small celery stalks and half each of a red and yellow bell pepper in there.

1 x Banana

More Tea

It starts approaching lunch time and I feel like I've been eating all morning.  The problem with this sort of diet is that you need to eat rather a lot of food in order to get enough calories so that you don't start fainting all the time or looking like a twig.

1 x Orange

1 x Banana

More Tea

For dinner, I make this:

It consists of about 6 grated carrots, a celery stalk, an onion, a handful of cherry tomatoes, yellow bell pepper and a bit of grated celeriac (I found it in the bottom of my fridge and it looked lonely).  I add plenty of black pepper and a bit of sea salt as I have no idea if the balsamic vinegar or soy sauce in my cupboard are vegan or not *sad face*.

I eat about half of it, then put it down for a bit.  It's hard going eating this much food in one go- I would never have thought that a salad could be filling.  I do get to the bottom of it (eventually).

I finish my first day feeling slightly smug and looking forward to payday when I can buy some slightly more exciting food.

Adventures in Insane Diet Land

I've recently been experimenting with Raw Veganism (badly) and have kept a diary of my exploits, which I am going to start uploading on here (with sexy pictures of salad and everything!!).


I've always been a bit obsessed with food.  Growing up in a home where we were poor and didn't have things like crisps and fizzy drink meant that as soon as I was able to earn my own money, those were pretty much the first things that I invested my hard-earned cash in.


I tend to put on weight very easily.  I also find it fairly easy to lose weight if I can stand life without crisps and alcohol for longer than five minutes.  This has resulted in a number of crazy diets over the years.  One of my personal favourites was the "Spaghetti Hoops on Toast Diet", which wasn't technically a diet but that's more or less all I ate for about six months.  I did occasionally divert from my spaghetti hoops path and switch to beans (or even beans and those tiny sausages if I was feeling especially naughty) but after a whole six months, I'd lost about three stone in weight.  


A very good friend announced recently one evening that she was giving raw veganism a go but that she was worried that it would be very difficult.....I immediately challenged her and declared loudly that actually it would be REALLY easy.  She called my bluff and said if I thought it would be so easy, why didn't I give it a go too.  I agreed.  In front of a room full of people.  Which (due to my stubborn nature) meant that I now had to give it a try.


Needless to say, although the first week went fairly well, after that the path of righteous dieting suddenly became rather difficult to negotiate.  I am still struggling with it, and will be uploading my struggles here shortly........

The Ongoing Saga of Creepy Guitar Strap Man

I posted this on Facebook a while ago but as it follows on from my last post, I thought I would share it on here too.

I thought I would share this with everyone I know because it's (fairly) amusing and also highlights that when you're a performer EVEN if you aren't "successful" as such, you can still attract total freak stalkers.

I've had a YouTube page for a couple of years or so and thus far it's been a fairly useful tool for promoting myself and getting more people to hear me singing.  I've met some cool people on there, it's opened the door on some interesting projects and I'm really grateful for all the support and advice I've got as a direct result.

Last January, I started getting messages from a fellow YouTuber (I call him Creepy Guitar Strap Man)- all of which I initially ignored-

CGSM: "u wanna wear your strap more while sittin doin songs to u can do better ty"

Me: ...

CGSM: "i think u should try wearin your strap while sittin u can do real good bye"

Me: ...

CGSM: "u wanna sit with the strap on more then stand u can do good that way ty you"

Me: ...

He left me alone for a few months, and I thought that was the end of being harassed.....however, a little while later, he started messaging me again-

CGSM: "u wanna wear your strap while sittin doin songs u can do good that way ty"

Me: (at this point I thought it might be amusing to wind him up a bit and see if I could get him to admit why he was asking me) "So if I wear my strap will I sound better?"

CGSM: "ya u will play better with your guitar strap on sittin doin your songs trust me it will work i think it will ty"

Me: "So does it help with the singing or just the guitar playing?"

CGSM: "just the guitar playin u can hold guitar better with the strap on sittin doin your songs trust me it works ty"

For anyone that doesn't play guitar and doesn't know, what he's saying is utter rubbish and not even remotely true, so I knew for sure it was some sort of odd fetish thing.  At this point I uploaded a new video- without wearing a guitar strap.

CGSM: "i told ya to wear your strap while sittin doin songs on guitar does anyone listen to me must not be :(( bye"

Then I uploaded another video, standing up playing guitar (with strap)

CGSM: "u wanna listen to me and wear your strap while sittin to doin songs please i would be happy bye"

I now upload another song, sans strap

CGSM: "how many times do i ask ya to wear your strap while sittin on guitar i told ya that bye"

Me: "Ok the constant mails are getting a little weird now.....FYI I've talked to many of my guitarist friends about this and wearing a strap makes NO difference to guitar playing at all....If you're interested in the music I play then by all means keep watching, if not I suggest you go and bother someone else.  Don't mean to be harsh but you're getting kinda annoying........"

Funnily enough, he never responded to my last email.....the annoying thing is, the account he mailed from isn't subscribed or friended to my account which means that (as he tends to mail straight after uploads) that it's another of my subscribers using an alt account- which is more than likely because he's been barred from YouTube for sending creepy emails to women asking them to wear their guitar strap!!!  I don't want to remove and block innocent people who've subbed because they really like what I do so am a bit stuck :/

On the plus side, having a creepy stalker IS kinda rock n roll.....even if it is one with the weirdest fetish I've come across so far (and I've typed "wool fetish" into Google Images so I know what I'm talking about)!!