First Brit ever wins longest-running talent show in world

Last night the first ever Briton won what is probably the oldest official talent contest in the world and the model for shows like American Idol and the X-Factor. Ayanna Witter Johnson was the joint winner along with Nathan Foley of New York's Apollo Amateur Night competition - the first time there has been a tie in its 70-year history.

Johnson, a singer, composer and cellist who is from north London, performed a self-penned number called "Ain't I A Woman". She says she decided to audition for the competition when she heard about it while studying nearby at the Manhattan School of Music on the upper west side of New York.

Her name is now on a list filled with mind-boggling talent who won past Amateur Night contests, including Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, James Brown and Lauryn Hill.

Billy Mitchell, the Apollo's tour director, says the Amateur Night Competition attracts a different kind of participant than shows like American Idol. "Most people on our show...their families are struggling," he says. But he rates the general talent of people who take part in the contest much higher than participants in shows like American Idol. "The talent seems to be much better - absolutely, without a doubt."

Ralph Cooper, an actor and producer, started the original Harlem Amateur Hour in April 1933 and the show is known for combining the talent show format with a distinctive, vaudeville-like atmosphere, and has depended on audience participation since the very beginning. According to the Apollo's website the "popularity contest has proven an effective measure of star potential, becoming a launch pad for some of the nation's greatest entertainers".

Ed, David and George

David Cameron and George Osbourne already look older, more weary and more portly sitting across from Ed Miliband during PMQs this week. As a reporter at Regeneration & Renewal I often interacted with Ed and his former department. I always thought he was the most genuine politician I had ever interviewed. He always granted me an interview and tried to make comments of substance, rather than the usual fearful fudging that befall many. Watching when I can from across the pond, I hope he keeps David and George on their toes on many issues.

Super-sheroes

The premier of Superman Batman: Apocalypse was satisfying enough. It had dark humor from Batman, true blue heroics from Superman, earth mother advice and slick warrior moves from Wonder Woman and a young Kryptonian girl caught in a rite of passage, Supergirl.

We have a few kick-ass female heroes out there but they are not as present in the culture as Superman, Batman or Spiderman. One of the main reasons why, is that as many women do not buy comics and the female comic book heroes do not prove to be as popular with the male fans. Even this film is based on a comic book called, 'The Girl from Krypton' but did not retain its original title because Hollywood needed a more 'action-movie' sounding name.

It's a shame that this is the case because female super heroes can be empowering. Not only because of their fantastically enhanced superhuman strength and powers, but they also serve to remind us of real female fighters from Joan of Arc to Sikh warrior women like Mai Bhago. These women need to be dragged out from the past and shown to our young girls as symbols of empowerment but also as a real part of our history.

Films like Superman Batman: Apocalypse may be carried by the male heroes but they do seek to remind us of this female warrior tradition, too. I, for one, got great satisfaction from seeing Supergirl repeatedly pound Darkseid in the film, but even more from seeing her come to a decision about who she was, by herself.

The film is out on DVD on 28th September, 2010.

7/7 Five years on

Anat Rosenberg was talking to her partner on the phone as she rode a London bus, when she died five years ago today. Anat was one of 52 innocent people who lost her life in a bomb blast on a day that affected many.

I was only a bystander caught up in the chaotic but also strangely calm, aftermath of events on 7 July, 2005. I was late for work and could well have been on or near the Circle line train that exploded at 8.50am. When I reached Holborn, all trains were suspended and I was seething about London Underground's typical, below par service. Yet, there was a feeling of dread on that brilliantly sunny day. Something was going on. I remember thinking that this was not just about bad service on the London Underground.

When I talked to my boss, he confirmed that it was a terrorist attack. Then all I could think of was the people crammed into a Tube carriage, on their way to work, just like me, who were now dead or injured.

It's been five years and there have been inquiries conducted, articles written, memorials erected and tributes paid. All these things go some way towards dealing with the trauma of that day. But how does one cope with the grief of losing a loved one, being psychologically traumatised or having an injury from that day? Coping is often a process experienced in private. American psychiatrist, author and trauma expert, Judith Herman, says trauma makes one feel a loss of control and a lack of connection and meaning to the world. Recovery is trying to get that back. The deeper the trauma, the more difficult the recovery. It is also unique for every individual depending on their experiences, situations, personalities and their support systems.

When marking the fifth anniversary of her death, John Falding, partner of Anat, told The Guardian: "It's pretty distressing. Everyone looks at their watches, waiting for the exact moment, like a countdown to new year in reverse, though obviously not a joyous occasion. You look, and then you see at that moment they were alive. And then they weren't."

Factually and intellectually, it's easy to grasp the cold, hard facts. But emotionally, it's the hardest part of loss for anyone, especially if it was sudden. Some pull out the old clichés, "time heals all wounds" or "time heals what reason cannot". Well, maybe it can but there's no guarantee. It also depends very much on what you do with that time. After all, for a lot of us, it can take years to even accept that dark things happen on the sunniest days.

Does Facebook create more distance or closeness?

A few years ago when Facebook was beginning to become popular, a colleague in the UK office I used to work in, disparaged it on a daily basis. "I refuse to join Facebook," he said, proud to be different from the masses that had. "My wife spent three hours on it yesterday, creating a virtual garden. Why waste your time?"

I didn't say it at the time but I considered the almost dramatic display a sign of limited thinking not unlike that of a grumpy old man with a distrust of new technology. After all, the mere act of signing up to Facebook does not create addictive or procrastinating tendencies. Facebook or not, these tendencies could manifest elsewhere. There is huge potential to waste your time on Facebook and many do, but it is also be a valuable social tool. There is a pro-activism involved in the use of it.

A friend connection could lead to an opportunity or spotting a piece of news on the feed, could lead to the discovery of a good story idea (if you're a journalist), like this example. It is also obviously a place to cultivate many forms of friendship.

Does the act of adding people as Facebook friends provoke addictive behaviour? Some add people they have only known for a few minutes in a bid to drum up as many "friends" as they can. Others are more select and only click that confirm tab if they REALLY mean it.

In the U.S. it is much more common, to use it as a professional tool, as well as a personal one. Then there are those people with whom you are reconnecting with after many years. Is it easier to add someone you may have fallen out with rather than truly re-engage and inject new life into the lost friendship in other ways? Or is it a positive way to bury the hatchet, but from a distance without having to deal with the messiness of past problems? Does it create more distance or closeness to add someone as a Facebook friend?

The answer is up for grabs depending on the person adding. Like deciding whether to spend hours creating virtual gardens or not, I hope we can also be proactive about which friendships to invest in outside of the Facebook forum to create closeness if we desire it.

Music is life's blood

Bruce Springsteen once said music was his "life's blood. Nothing means as much to me or ever has". That was when he was young. Before he got married and had kids. He may phrase his passion for music differently now. But he had a point.

Sometimes music is all that people have. When I interviewed Holocaust survivor and pianist Alice Herz-Sommer, for the north London newspaper, Hampstead and Highgate Express in 2002, she told me music had been the "food of life" for prisoners in Nazi concentration camps.

Music entertains, it relaxes, it expresses. But not in some lite fashion: it sometimes has the power to make people hang onto life because it IS the expression of life. Music is important outside of commercial considerations, with which it is visibly entangled. This may seem obvious, but music is too often synonymous with the charts, celebrities and fame. And its other appeal is not merely to lift down-at-heels kids out of the ghetto so they can express themselves and become rich and famous. It has a proven ability to improve the quality of life of those suffering from traumatic experiences and illnesses. Organisations like Nordoff-Robbins are one of the lead practising and representative bodies for the music therapy field.

Academics say music is often the first thing many babies are exposed to when the mother (or other primary caregiver) sings and/or makes baby talk with a newborn. Music is rhythm, tone and vibration, according to Inayat Khan, the founder of the Sufi movement in the west. In his book, The Mysticism of Sound and Music, he said: “The music of the universe is the background of the little picture which we call music.” English writer Aldous Huxley said: "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche said, "Without music, life would be a mistake."

Nevertheless, music probably still evokes Lady Gaga, Beyonce or some intangible, feelgood feeling we have for a song or an artist's work, rather than these profound musings. It's all about who's in the charts or what's playing at that hip club. As I handed in my final project about music therapy to Columbia Journalism School this week, I reflected on how my views on music had changed while writing it.

I can conclude that I have even more reverence for it. Music means a lot to us as listeners - and players - but why we love it is not always explored. Music is not just an indulgence or only about youth, different scenes or the latest download. It is something more basic, it gives expression to life's heartbeat, the layers beneath the everyday. It even has the potential for concrete medical results like rewiring brains, a study from Harvard found this year. It would be nice if we could keep this in our minds when we listen to the next chart hit.

International Women's Week

I played a hand in organizing a performing arts concert and a crafts and cookery fair as a part of a Women's International Leadership program last week. The events took place at a New York graduate residence to celebrate International Women's Week.

The point of the performing arts concert, was to celebrate female creativity and so, art produced by women. One of my favorite sights was seeing a colleague crochet sitting on an armchair, in between serving wine at the reception preceding the concert! We were lucky to have one of New York City's most sought-after jazz singers, Karen Oberlin (left).

Her soulful, graceful and generous performance reminds us that we have a lot to learn from the experience of preceding generations of women and should humbly pay attention.

The crafts and cookery fair may baffle some in how it celebrates modern womanhood but its concept was quite simple: to reclaim traditional crafts for modern women - without the patriarchy!

How many of us have mothers or grandmothers who may have grown up learning to cook, embroider and sew for their families - skills for which modern women may seem to not have much use for. But as busy professional women, we still have to eat and sew fallen buttons onto our clothes. Yes, we could throw money at getting these activities done, but we can also learn these skills to become more self-sufficient, rounded people. And some of them are meditative and enjoyable like knitting. (One colleague taught a Harlem family to knit - including the father! - at our event!)

Simultaneously these "quaint" crafts help us reinvent and remember a legacy of our foremothers and express our modern selves artistically. We actually unwittingly hit upon a trend too, as this article from the UK's Guardian.co.uk shows more women turning to crafts as an activity for pre-wedding parties during hard economic times.

One of the activities at the fair was creating lavender pouches out of old bras, which may well beat burning them. Some men eyed this table rather nervously, one of them implying that handling a bra may distract him from the process of making a pouch! Which brings me to another thought...whilst these events were a part of a Women's Week, it was good to see men come out, enjoy and play a part in all of them! Call me a deluded idealist, but I would love to see more of them cook and sew and so, contribute to male-female equilibrium in households everywhere!

How do you deal with writer's block?

You switch off your mobile phone, disable your email, take the phone off the hook. Put a bottle of water and a cookie next to you. You forget about your laundry, about people - good and bad - that you may need to deal with and all your future problems/dilemmas/plans. You focus on your thinking and make space for yourself in your head without all the aforementioned distractions. So that you can hear yourself. Then push those keys or move that pen and WRITE and do not worry about it being perfect.

It also REALLY helps if a friend or partner actually forces you to do these things!

South Asian Women's Leadership

Tonight, I went to an event organized by the unapologetic South Asian Women's Leadership Forum in downtown Manhattan about breaking into the publishing and journalism industries. There was no talk of race or gender as barriers to working in the industries, simply lots of good tips, strategies and advice on how to do it. An American mindset? Maybe. But it still made me wonder why after my eight years of journalism in England, this kind of simple support network does not exist in London...