The Semillons Blog

Attitudes to Prostate cancer

2010-06-29T05:15:00.000-07:00

You don’t need statistical evidence to realise that men are rubbish communicators. Listening to our pitiful chat-up lines generally does the trick.

But consider this: almost as many men (10,500) die from prostate cancer every year as women die from breast cancer (12,000). Yet which disease do you hear more about? The press, airwaves and billboards are full of awareness-raising campaigns around breast cancer, which has become somewhat of a cause célèbre. Somehow, fighting prostate cancer doesn’t quite have the same ring about it.

Perhaps that’s the problem. Women are proud of their breasts. Men are not quite so keen to talk up their prostates. Well I, along with the other Semillons, am out to change all that.

Before I’m accused of sexism, I should point out that my mother was one of those 12,000 – she died from breast cancer last year. When she was diagnosed, I was deluged with concern from friends, which continued throughout her treatment, even around those difficult and awkward subjects of mastectomy and chemotherapy, and right up to her death.

When my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer three months later, there was barely a ripple. There’s been little in the way of concern expressed since, despite what happened to my mum, and the fact that he’s now alone. So why do people downplay this disease? Being a man, of course, he doesn’t encourage questions – he’s embarrassed by the topic, and the less-than-comfortable procedures he’s had to go through as part of his treatment. I can only assume other people’s reticence is because they don’t believe prostate cancer is as serious as breast cancer. They’re wrong.

Prostate cancer kills one man every hour in the UK. It is the most common male cancer, with 35,000 men diagnosed each year. Yet research into male cancers is severely under funded, to the extent that it lags a decade behind research into other cancers.

So lacking is the awareness surrounding prostate cancer, that I have decided, along with my fellow intrepid Semillons, to do away with my inherent male shyness and inflict my body upon the hitherto deprived female public, in the hope that this will shock you into action. Given that we will be embarrassing ourselves in this manner, the least you can do is turn up and make fun of us.

Guy Woodward
Editor
Decanter

Our Fine Wine Junkie tells all

2010-06-29T04:41:00.000-07:00

My training has been going as well as expected for a “fine wine junkie”!!

I have always enjoyed running and being chicken legged, i can manage to run quite far without too much discomfort! I think Christelle has tried to put a group together with something for everyone and I hope that my athletic(skinny) look will appeal to those more intellectual types who don’t just go for the beef-cake look!! At least us marathon running types have no shortage of stanima due to long running sessions and depriving ourselves of our favourite foods. Tim said he had been doing some press-ups, actually quite a lot of press-ups and I tried it out for myself and did not get so far....I think the most important thing in training is watching what you drink, this is impossible for me as the drinks disappear too fast for me to count them...

I think that the only thing that is serious in all this, is raising money and awareness for Everyman, I personally was shocked to hear the statistics about male cancers and it is something no-one has ever discussed with me. So come on girls, put the date in the diary to give us some support and if it doesn’t get you hot under the collar, you will certainly have the opportunity to laugh more than usual!!

Gearoid Devaney MS

A brief note from Andrew Shaw

2010-06-29T04:38:00.000-07:00

How have you have been preparing?
Plenty of sausages, burgers and cheap lager (no, not below cost) modelling myself on Rab C Nesbitt - taking the performance seriously as ever...!

Any humorous training tips?
Don't use cooking oil while on the sunbed!

Why are you taking part?
That's a question I ask myself a lot!! The only real reason (except to massage my ego) is to support this very worthy charity.

Anthony Rose: thoughts from a first timer

2010-06-17T05:43:00.000-07:00

When a young woman famous for wearing f*** me shoes asks you what your thong size is, followed up by a question about your trousers, it wouldn't be unnatural for your thoughts to turn to being pleasurably sized up for your inside leg measurements. "I think it's 32 but if you wouldn't mind just coming round and checking to make absolutely sure, I'd really appreciate it". When the same young woman goes round half the wine trade asking for similarly saucy information, it dawns on you that you're no longer one of a special kind but rather one of a bunch, a bunch of Semillons.

Actually having to deal with one's thong size is not something I've previously given a great deal of thought to, but I was surprised at the alacrity with which one or two of my co-Sems responded 'large' or even 'extra large', making sure that they'd copied in everyone else in true peacock (one word) style. Alpha males who are the first to leap onto the dance floor and would love to drive round in a Ferrari, preferably naked, if only they could afford one. I was less surprised that those who evidently responded small, extra small or absolutely tiny must have done so on the quiet as there were no shared emails going round of that nature.

With four weeks to go to the event, it now appears that the campaign to get the Semillons to keep their clothes on has stuttered to a halt and that the boys are truly buffing. I can only stand and admire the weights section at my gym, which is chock full of the sort of guys the women in our audience would pay good money to see. My own routine consists of lifting the weights off the rowing machine so that I can use it, although my favourite work-out routine is the sauna. Working up a sweat there fully justifies rewarding myself with a latte, a selection of bakery items and a grab bag of Walkers cheese and onions crisps. You see, we're all doing our bit for piling on the pounds - the pounds for cancer campaign www.everyman-campaign.org.

Anthony Rose

Tim Atkin prepares for the big day

2010-06-17T05:21:00.000-07:00

Never say never. The last time The Semillons performed in public, I assumed it was just that. But here we are five years later – greyer, slightly fatter, yet still young at heart – preparing to do it all again for prostate cancer.

Why would a man in his late forties want to take his clothes off in public? I keep asking myself the same thing. On an hourly basis. There are three reasons. First, Everyman is a great charity and my own mother died of cancer (liver, not prostate) in 1982. Second, it was such a laugh last time that I’m keen to strut my stuff one more time with the original and new members of the troupe. And third, it’s an excuse to get fit. No one wants to see flab on July 8th, so we’re all trying to pummel the pounds.

Toning (well, reconditioning) your body gets harder as you get older. The press ups hurt more, the dumb-bells get heavier, the rowing machine is an instrument of torture. I’ve been seeing a personal trainer twice a week for six months’ in a vain attempt to look half decent. “Tim, have you done your three five mile runs this week?” “Er, no, Chucks, I’ve been eating and drinking too much on a press trip to Provence.”

Training tips? There is no easy way to get fit, alas. The more you exercise and the less crap you eat, the more pounds you lose. Easy, really. Except that it isn’t. I drink too much wine, travel too much and spend too much time sitting at a desk. With a month to go, I’ve given up milk (soya only for me, yuck) and bread, have cut dow on the booze, am going to the gym four times a week and trying to do 200 press ups a day. 7 pounds to go to hit my target weight of 12 and a half stone….

Some of my colleagues have chosen to go for a full body wax, apparently. I’m tempted, although it seems a bit Chippendales to me. I also can’t quite face the pain of the process. I’ve also decided against the spray on tan after an accident on the night before the last show. I went to get myself turned orange at a beauty clinic, nipped home to have a shower (as instructed), then went out for the evening in a pink shirt. It was a hot night, and I couldn’t help sweating a little at the Bibendum Options’ Night. After an hour, my pink shirt was stained with patches of tanning lotion.

So….a white bum this time. See you there, I hope.

Tiger Tim

A few nerves for first timer Barry

2010-06-11T03:19:00.000-07:00

Preparations for the big day...

I am not quite sure how to tackle training to strip and its not exactly the sort of challenge I would like to say out loud to the personal trainers in my gym! I have been training for a cycling race in Scotland so at least that has got my legs in shape but I am really not sure about the rest of my body. Cycling has also at least got me well trained to pull on lycra and velcro and it sounds like that may come in handy with the dodgey uniforms being discussed as suitable stripper attire.

My pasty Irish skin isn’t looking at all bronzed and there are no holidays in the diary so just trying to figure out how I get a serious tan with only a few weeks to go….Tim Atkin has warned against the St Tropez bottle solution as he reckons it runs and causes streaks and nearly ruined his shower. I am sure there will be as Essex bird somewhere I can ask for advice to avoid both.

The other big bit of preparation I am definitely not sure how to tackle is learning any sense of rhythm in the time left available! I haven’t managed anything that looks like a cool bit of dancing in my 36 years and I think its probably too late. Michael Cox has warned I need to mentally prepare myself for the sheer terror of the night mostly that is seeing each other naked. I have been trying to picture Anthony and Tim naked in the same room but I just cant take it for too long and wake up sweating.

Training tips...

I have swapped full fat cheese to low fat hoping that will do the trick. At the London Wine show after a few vinos late one night I even hugged Michael Cox to check out the competition and the old boy is in good nick! I have since been asked to combine both a strip show and a wine tasting at a civilised hen do and it looks like if this goes well it could be a new career.
Why are you taking part? What do they think about the chosen charity Everyman

I am still not sure why and as the event gets closer I am regretting that foolhardy bravado! I do think it is a great cause and my keen embarrassment will be a small price to pay.

Michael Cox AKA Sir Dancealot returns for his second Semillons appearance

2010-06-11T03:11:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe it’s been five years since the first Semillons event..... so many memories come flooding back! Nothing could have prepared us for the noise that 200 or so Wine Trade Women made as we entered the room to the erotic sounds of Tom Jones’s version of ‘Kiss’... The squeals and the cheering, (jeering, perhaps??), came from mouths agape with expectation, and the audience was a mass of eyes wide with a seeming mixture of excitement and anxiety! The Semillons had arrived – it was harvest time, and we were ripe for plucking..........

Well, four of us have cocked a snook at Old father Time and are coming back for more on July 8th, to be joined by four Semillons virgins, and I for one just can’t wait to hear those screams of ‘off, off, off’ again (surely they didn’t mean ‘get off’?) My love affair with Velcro can be rekindled.....

As the second oldest Semillon, keeping in shape and up with the youngsters is a bit like running up a down escalator – you have to run pretty fast just to stay ahead, and a moment’s hesitation can have depressing results. So the progress towards the honed and toned look has not been helped by a couple of weeks of relative overindulgence. A trip to Rioja for a week involved not only some late nights and copious glasses of tempranillo juice, but also quite a lot of jamón iberico and chorizo. I fear these two delicacies do not feature on the diet sheet so lovingly created by my personal trainer. The last few days have featured a dinner, in the company of the Lord Mayor of London, at Vintners’ Hall, and a Wine Trade golf tour to West Norfolk during which exercise on the links was counteracted by overindulgence on the 19th and 20th holes.

I first started going to Jo, my personal trainer, some five years ago – not long before the first Semillons event – and she does a great job in keeping my waistline under control and making me feel guilty whenever I am faced with a biscuit. I have a one hour session with her (so to speak) every week at a local gym in Ascot and, as her husband is a personal trainer specialising in golfers, I am often likely to be sharing the cross-trainer with the likes of Graham McDowell, David Howell, or Thomas Björn. Paul’s latest client is Hugh Grant (who wants to hone his golfing muscles) but I have yet to come face to baby face with that foppish grin.

Despite the pain and sweat, keeping fit is actually an incredibly invigorating experience, but it also can be quite addictive. My latest ‘drug’ is my Concept2 rowing machine on which I sit every Sunday for about 43 minutes clocking up 10 kms. It’s boring as hell but the ‘glow’ afterwards is only matched, in my view, by the feeling after spending a couple of hours on the dance floor! Now there’s another way of losing pounds (and inhibitions)

If you haven’t yet bought your ticket to the Semillons on July 8th, I urge you to do so quickly – it’s going to be a mega evening of fun, laughter, good wine, and many wide-eyed exclamations of OMG’s. The trade will be discussing the abs and fabs around the water-coolers for weeks to come. In the immortal words of someone cool when I was a mere lad... Be there, or be square!

See you there!

Sir Dancealot x

Preparations for the big day are well underway

2010-05-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

I write having just come back to my desk from the Laithwaites trade tasting in our Gallery Room at Vinopolis, which I must say seemed to go very well. Apart from the great wines there was a good calibre of trade in the room, which in part has prompted me to write this blog. Whilst there I took the opportunity to catch up with one of my ‘Strip team’ members.

Much of our conversation was based around comparing notes on training or perhaps in my case complete lack of it, which he highlighted as I was tucking in to the chorizo and parma ham on the buffet. We also discussed the efforts being undertaken by our other colleagues, which include a regular two hour Ergo session ( a rowing machine – we used these at school and I swore after I left I would not use one again) and a serious amount of free weights. Over the top I would say and we agreed that these guys need exposing!

By way of making myself feel better I proudly told my colleague that like Mrs Ellwood I was taking solace in the fact that some girls like men with a slightly portly look. Talking of Mrs Ellwood that reminds me of a recent conversation we had. Over a very nice dinner we were discussing, as one does, techniques that you might use for the an event like this. All was going very well until she asked me if I was going to “put something down there”. Well this rather took me back, I mean we have been happily married for 10 years, been together for 13 and now have two children. It is all a bit late to be telling me these things now don’t you think?

Well it is going to be a very fun night and Everyman is a great cause to be raising money for. I have two friends who were affected by Male cancer and both were successfully cured. Rest assured if the show doesn’t blow you away the venue will!

Rupert Ellwood
Managing Director (and part time Semillon)
Vinopolis

Love Your Greens - How Broccoli and other Brassicas can help in the fight against Cancer

2010-05-13T08:18:00.000-07:00

Love Your Greens is proud to be supporting the Semillons.

Love your Greens is a newly launched campaign funded by the Brassica Growers Association to raise awareness of vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and swede – all members of the brassica family – and their health benefits. Broccoli, in particular, is thought to help reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

Prof Colin Cooper, Head of the Everyman Centre at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) says: “Our understanding of how diet might affect cancer risk is rapidly growing and there are now several lines of evidence suggesting eating brassica vegetables, in particular broccoli, could reduce prostate cancer risk. Further research is needed to confirm the studies, in the meantime eating a healthy balanced diet, which includes brassicas, will have benefits to health.”

Look out for delicious (and healthy) broccoli canapés on the night!

For further information: Madeleine@pamlloyd.com

My Experiences with Prostate Cancer by Steven Spurrier

2010-05-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if Prostate Cancer, or any cancer for that matter, is genetic, but it seems to be so in my family. Both my grandfather (in his 70s) and my father (in his 50s) had the operation, as I did in my early 60s. Several friends of mine, including Clive Coates MW, the well-known wine writer, seemed to be going through examinations and tests around the same time. Clive had his operation the same month as me (in December, his surgeon being appropriately named Mr Christmas), while one of my contemporaries from school opted for “watchful waiting”. Very sadly, he died from cancer of the prostate last year.

I certainly did not expect to be diagnosed with cancer of the prostate, despite the family history. One never does for this kind of thing happens to other people. It was only after a check-up for cholesterol – happy my levels are kept restrained by copious quantities of red wine – that my GP told me that my PSA was rising. Not dangerous by any means, but rising. A series of tests revealed that I actually was affected by cancer, not badly at all, really just a speck, but something to pay attention to. Finally, after three different consultations across the country, I opted for the operation to be undertaken by a specialist surgeon in this field at the Harley Street Clinic.

For some weeks prior to the operation, I received much information on prostate cancer in general and the possible after-effects of the operation, one of which was the potential loss of sexual potency. Without going into details, my strong conclusion, even during the months following the operation and particularly recently with the loss of my old friend from school, was that the operation was the sensible, actually the only possible choice. But to make the choice, I needed information, and this could only be provided by research. That is why the research centres such as Everyman are of such vital importance.

Everyman is Europe’s only dedicated male cancer research centre and one of the most successful cancer research organisations in Europe. Here are a few facts on the Everyman Campaign Charity.

Prostate cancer kills one man an hour in the UK with 35,000 men diagnosed each year.
Prostate cancer has overtaken lung cancer to become the most common cancer in men.
Testicular cancer affects men between the ages of 15 and 44, but is now 99% curable if caught early enough.
Since 1975 the incidence of testicular cancer has more than doubled, the reasons for this not yet being known, hence the need for continuing research.

By supporting the Everyman Campaign Charity you will be doing good in a very positive manner. By attending this evening organised by Christelle Guibert from Decanter Magazine and Rebecca Fraser from Louis Latour Agencies, you will be assured of a marvellously memorable evening. What better reasons could you wish for?

A word from our esteemed compere

2010-03-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

My only appearance at an unconventional fund-raising event so far has been dressed in women's clothes. (Steady on! We're talking panto dame, not regular cross-dressing...) So I'm delighted to have been invited to co-host this admirable evening. I am told the high point will consist of some intrepid wine industry guys getting their gear off. (Or should that be the low point?) So I'm not quite sure what I am expected to wear. Or not wear. Possibly a pair of blinkers to shield me from the awful sight on stage. And focus on the impeccably behaved audience, who will, I gather, all be women, and no doubt giving these chaps support with a little polite applause.

In order to prepare for this event, I took advice from a Portuguese friend, who has advised me to eat six meals a day (presumably to build up my musculature). It's a tough regime, and has forced me to carry apples and bags of nuts around in order to keep to the schedule. I've just had a slice of Ryvita with some peanut butter, in fact. I know, you'll be thinking that's not a proper meal, but I can't write this and cook a fork and platter gravy dinner as well, can I? Another three meals to go, and it's only 3pm. What I suffer for a good cause.

And that's why we're all doing it, for a good cause. Mention 'testicles' to any bloke and he'll wince inwardly. And that's without the addition of the word 'cancer'. Thank goodness, not many men die from testicular cancer (and no women at all, apparently). The figures for deaths from prostate cancer, on the other hand, are horrifying. 10,000 a year, or, as the Everyman website says, more than one an hour. So anything to raise money for research into these two diseases is a no-brainer. And the fact that a roomful of women are prepared to jeer cheer the efforts of a few brave men who are stripping off in a good cause is rather comforting. Maybe we do serve a purpose, after all.