Hey Guys and Dolls, welcome to my website!
Let’s start with a little bit about me (this shouldn’t be too hard, I’m one of my favourite subjects according to my sisters). I was born in Colchester, the oldest recorded town in Britain and the first Roman capital before London. I grew up in a lovely rural village in Essex and stayed there until I was about 20, which was when my parents insisted that I work for a living, even though I had actually being working sporadically for many years. My school experience was pretty horrendous; My teeth might have been a little bit on the protruding side, well ok, quite a big bit on the protruding side, in fact they were so big that I couldn’t even shut my mouth over them, so they permanently stuck out like Bugs Bunny. I had a mop of frizzy hair that had been brilliantly sculpted into something vaguely resembling a half eaten stick of candyfloss and absolutely no figure whatsoever. What didn’t help matters was that the school thought it would be a great idea to offer two different styles of maroon skirts, pleated and non-pleated, or more suitably, pikey or non pikey. Pleated was cheap, non pleated wasn’t. Then, to make things just a little bit worse, my Mum wouldn’t give us deodorant because she said we didn’t need it. She was right of course, we didn’t, but this made no odds, if you’re in PE and you’re the only girl not putting on deodorant, whether you smell or not you’re going to get some stick. So there I was, 14 years old, no figure, Ken Dodd hair, the pikey skirt option and a face full of teeth, standing stinking in the corner trying to come up with some equally witty response to the fantastically comical ‘Goofy, stinking, lesbian’ that was usually shouted at me. So no, we won’t talk anymore about my school days.
Now college on the other hand, was great. I had a wonderful two years at college studying Performing Arts where I basically got to prance about for a couple of years having the time of my life learning how to act, sing and most importantly, blag my way through life. After college I joined a cheesy pop band called’ Frenzz’ yes ‘Friends’ but with a double zee…Genius! We wore luminous trousers and flashy light elbow pads; I know what you’re thinking... Fantastic! And it was! The highlight was to perform on stage with the likes of the Spice Girls to 70,000 people at ‘Party in the Park’ Stockton and Cleethorpes and a club tour with Billie Piper. I won’t lie, we were crap, but we didn’t know that at the time and thought we were going to be the next big thing and I have the tattoo to prove it! Before the band I tried my hand at a few jobs to see where I thought my future may lie if I didn’t make it as a Hollywood movie star and when I say ‘few’ I actually mean 22 jobs in total. It turns out that factory work is most definitely not for me, nor is bar work, admin, reception, accounts, retail, food, driving, selling, delivering, IT, market research, the list goes on... The banana factory was a highlight but I think working at the jam factory taught me the most. Most of my factory success was definitely at the box-making factory where, in the 2 days I lasted, I managed to beat my own average ‘box made per hour’ record about 17 times, although I became pretty damn quick at making capacitors as well. Those early achievements really set me up for life I think.
So after months of failed auditions I finally got accepted into the ‘Frenzz’ phenomenon and while we were touring the country for no wage I drove a transit van, delivering chocolate to post-office machines and Pringles to safari parks. I got to drive round the safari park every time the Pringles ran out and then had to spend 3 hours cleaning the monkey crap off the roof. It was one of the best jobs I ever had and I was gutted when I wrote the van off and lost it. I lost my license for that as well, but represented myself in court and won it back! Since then I have managed to represent myself in court twice more and won both of them… come on! Could have been a lawyer… or maybe not.
I spent 5 years as an Events Manager, not because I wanted a career in it, I just realised I got paid a lot more to do a lot less… It turns out I’m not as stupid as I look, but as John Cleese famously once said, “it’s better to look stupider than you are, than be stupider than you look” or is that ‘be stupider than you… hmmm never mind. I ended up running an event at the Ally Pally bike show where I had to parade about in Spandex giving out leaflets to fat bikers with horny pony tails and far too much facial hair, I ended up becoming a bike stunt girl in the bike show. I had to lie on the floor whilst two bikers proceeded to jump over me and bounce their tyres over my face. This is where I met John Price, the first person to see TV Presenting Potential in me. I became a compère and ‘MC’ at different events around the country, which eventually led into TV presenting. My first taste of the job was a budget TV program on Channel 5 called ‘Rem Con Raiders’ by Image Wizard Television, it was brilliant. I’ll never forget the audition where the producer took me onto the streets of Clapham, thrust a camera in my face and told me to pretend I was in front of the Britannia Stadium presenting the World Cup. Turns out I can blag for England and have been doing so ever since, from there I was asked to present the ‘European Drag Racing Championships’ for Sky Sports and eventually into poker where I have been ever since. I spent 2 and a half years learning and teaching the game on Poker Night Live with the best poker tuition money can buy (6 different poker experts) and I currently appear regularly on Sky Poker, catch me on Sky 865. You never know, you might learn something. Oh I was also the advert girl for Zoo Magazine, I’m the one in jodhpurs copying a Winalot advert but with men instead of dogs!
The last couple of years have been poker poker poker! I have played it, taught it, presented it, written about it, been a VIP Player Manager and an Affiliate Manager for an online poker room and even dealt it at high profile events.
I have had many names at the poker table including Night Nurse, Nursey, Orpsterjetmeister General, Orpedo, Orpatron and most recently I’m trying out Orpimus Prime… oh yes!
My hobbies consist mainly of adventure or extreme sports. I’m an avid rock-climber and climb every week. I have recently set myself a challenge to try every extreme sport there is and blog it, so watch out for that. So far I have tried sky diving, bungee jumping, canoeing, surfing, diving, white water rafting, trekking, cliff jumping, coastal steering, skiing, horse riding, wake boarding and most recently zorbing – if you’re unaware of zorbing this is a masterful idea someone came up with where you get loaded into a massive plastic ball with a mate and launched down a large hill…absolutely fantastic. You will also see me down the local cinema a lot as I’m a lover of the movies and toffee popcorn.
Well, that’s it from me for now.
Take care of yourselves
Michelle
xx