Lorraine Kelly – Walk Off The Pounds

This is an extraordinarily mumsy workout. I don’t mean that in a disparaging way – some of my best friends are mums. In fact, I’m a mum, come to think of it. I appreciate that being a female who has given birth in the past isn’t really a defining characteristic. And yet! This is an extraordinarily mumsy DVD none-the-less. I blame Lorraine Kelly who looks like she should be  chirpily running the tombola at a primary school fete. And all the emphasis on just doing 10 minutes worth of exercise here and there so that you can fit it around your busy lifestyle. And the fact that the trainer, Jane Wake, is clutching a baby in the intro section. That ramps the mumsiness right up.

Cute baby too. I mean, he’s no Geri Halliwell’s dog, obviously, but it’s nice to have him around.

“If I had two of these, I could use them as weights.”

We’re promised a unique range of power workout routines along with handy hints and a diary plan to get us walking. Fucked if I can find the diary plan anywhere on this DVD. Admittedly given the quality of the rest of the DVD it’d probably be a scan of a page-per-view diary with “WALK” biroed on 4 of the days.

The cheapness is apparent everywhere on this workout. There are only two camera angles and I don’t think either of them was managed by a professional cameraman. One looks like it’s the security camera and the other is probably the webcam on Lorraine’s laptop. 

Found footage.

I assume that the workout is being shot in Lorraine’s living room. If so, she’s fortunate to have a room big enough to do the 10 steps forward, 10 to the side workout that Jane has devised for us. Luckily I had the foresight to adapt the routine for my available space rather than just striding purposefully into the wall every 30 seconds.

You may need to push your sofa back and knock a  few walls down.

There’s not much instruction as far as actual walking goes which was a tad disappointing. I mean, sure I think I know how to walk but I bet I’m doing it all wrong, really. I wanted to see Lorraine and Jane in the park showing me how to do the big stridey swingy-arms walking that we keep seeing glimpses of.

Big Stridey Swingy-Arms Walking. But How?

Instead we get a warm-up, Pilates stretch, some strength exercise and a couple of aerobic workouts which are disappointing called “Power Aerobics 1” and “Power Aerobics 2.” What were you thinking? Surely, “Powerobics” was just staring you in the face?

Or what about Porobics? 

Lorraine is best known for presenting all kinds of early morning television programmes like GMTV and Daybreak. I don’t ever watch breakfast television. I feels it’s a bit scandalous to watch television at 7 o’clock in the morning – in the same way that it would be to have a glass of wine or visit a casino at that time of day.

Lorraine also provides the narration for Raa Raa the Noisy Lion, for which I respect her.

She seems like a nice lady. I was pleased to discover that Amazon offers Lorraine Kelly merchandise including phone socks with pictures of her looking delightful on them. Although disappointingly, looking at the pictures I don’t think they actually exist yet. The stitching on those cases looks suspiciously familiar in both photos, don’t you think?

Hey, just what are you trying to pull here, internet?

Excited beyond measure  by the prospect of owning a Lorraine Kelly phone sock, fridge magnet or tea towel , I decided to check out whether any other C-List Celebber goodies are available.

It’s a rich seam, let me tell you. I was pretty impressed with this “I love Coleen Nolan" mug I especially liked the use of the “violent sociopath”  font.

This Natalie Cassidy wall clock is clearly a thing of beauty and it comes signed by the artist! I don’t know in this case if the artist is the person who took the photograph or whether it’s the person who downloaded the picture from Google images and stuck a clock mechanism in the middle of her face. It’s art either way of course. It’s just a pity that the picture was taken at five to two. If the hands had been at 20 past eight , Natalie would have a full Pancho Villa moustache.

However, The  C-List Celebrity merchandise winner has to be these amazing Lucy Benjamin postcards. Tell me these little beauties aren’t something that we all need in our lives.

I couldn’t let a bit of quality merchandise like that pass me by without commendation. I doubt they’re lacking interested buyers but I’ve done my bit to help them anyway and  provided  a suitably enthusiastic review on Amazon. You’re  welcome, world.

Worst Bit

Oh god, why the stupid repetitive non-music, why? If you’ve got this little regard for using something that’s pleasant to listen why don’t you just use printer noises as a backdrop and be done with it.

Difficulty Level,

Once you’ve adjusted for not having a living room the size of a football field, this is quite a satisfying workout. Sure it gets a bit repetitive but that just means no-one’s planning to spring any dance moves on me which can only be a good thing.

Lorraine looks unsure about this.

Would I do this workout again?

Oh I don’t know Lorraine. It was fun and all but I’m just not sure. Although it occurs to me that once I see your lovely face looking back at me from my phone sock every day, I will probably find it hard to keep away. 

Keith Lemon – Keith Lemon’s Fit

As with many of the celebrities whose workouts are featured here, I am unfamiliar with Lemon’s television work. I understand that he has hosted a game show called Celebrity Juice and has made a film so presumably he’s doing alright for himself. He is also the power behind a charity called Lemonaid which he mentions on the DVD.

Contact them now. Lemon is almost slightly sure that’s the right web address.

For this workout, Lemon is joined by Deanne Berry who is best known for appearing as a fitness instructor in Eric Prydz’s ‘Call on Me’ music video and popular masturbation aid. Aside from the occasional ‘Punching –in-Face’ or ‘Exposing-Erect-Penis’ incident, the pair seem to have pretty good chemistry.

The workout sections include a warm up, Hi Energy, Combat, Balls on the Floor, Shake Yer Booty and Berry’s innovative swimming pool based routine – Wetercise.

Balls on the Floor

Throughout the workouts Lemon uses a revolutionary device called a Keith Kam to provide a POV perspective and allow us to see Deanne’s signature moves up close. He is at great pains to point out to Deanne and the other girls that it’s not just about getting minge shots. Which goes to show how new both of them are to the Celebrity Workout DVD. Most of the DVDs we’ve covered have probably included a dedicated ‘Minge Cameraman’ on the team in order to ensure that we are never more than 5 minutes away from a woman’s gyrating pelvis.

Arses as well as minge. The Keith Kam is nothing if not versatile.

As well as the workouts, Lemon provides plenty of useful DVD extras including a visit to a laughter therapist and a makeover sessions with his highly informative stylist, Arabella.

“So what’s going to happen here?”

“I’m gonna give him some clothes and he’s gonna try them on.”

Overall I think Lemon provides some common sense to the flibbertigibbet world of Celebrity workouts. Most celebs shout out “You’re looking good!” by way of encouragement. Only Lemon has the foresight to add “Well, I don’t know that ’cos I can’t actually see ya.”Likewise the disclaimer at the start of the workout is much more useful than the usual nonsense.

Lemon also includes a video diary of his week in getting in shape before making the DVD. It includes the more swingball action than all the other fitness DVDs put together.

Trufact.

Best Bit

Oh you know how I am about music on Celebrity workout DVDs. The minute I detect a plinky plonky soundtrack, I want to go and punch an orphan in the face. No worries about that here. Lemon’s mate’s band provide the music. Live on set!

“They nearly went in for the X-Factor. But they didn’t go in for it.”

Worst Bit

Well the tension between Lemon and Berry can get a bit much sometimes. No-one needs the upset of seeing Berry storming out over a penis-based misunderstanding. As Lemon says “Most women like to look at my penis. I’ve got a really nice penis. It’s right smooth like a dolphin’s beak.” They do get it sorted out though after he tells her that he’s more sorry “than Ronan Keating where he wrote that song where he said that he was sorry and that’s all he could say but he said more things, I know, because it was a full song.”

Not porn

Apparently, Berry was 76% angry with Lemon that the workout has become a soft porn debacle.  Lemon replies that he knows what soft porn is but doesn’t know what a debacle means. I’m bringing it up because I wanted to mention the word ‘porn’ as often as possible for Search Engine Optimisation purposes.  ‘Porn’ is the eighth most popular search term that leads people to CLCW, you know. Jordan’s pinktastic workout led to me repeatedly saying the word like I was suffering from a bout of oddly specific Tourettes.

Also not porn

Hi guys! While I appreciate that CLCW might not be exactly what you ‘porn’ searchers are after, it’s nice to have you all here, anyway. Sorry about your mum putting parental controls on your laptop. Here’s a picture of Deanne Berry’s arse:

Similar to porn. Still not porn though.

Difficulty Level

Although few of us can dare to aspire to have a body like Lemon’s – Berry describes it as a ‘natural dancer’s body’ - this DVD does attempt to penetrate the mysteries of exercise so that they can be understood by scum like us. Lemon’s best tip concerns speed walking where he advises us to walk as though we have a pickled onion clenched between our butt cheeks that we don’t want to drop.

He also recommends jumping over your sofa three times a day for great cardio.

Would I do this Workout again?

It’s a possibility. Particularly if I want to brush up on my swingball technique or gain some more insight into how to “Run a lamp post. Walk a lamp post.”

Run a lamp post

Walk a lamp post.

Run a lamp post

Walk a lamp post.

Shit. Another lamp post.

Fern Britton – Lynne Robinson’s Everyday Pilates

Despite being the country’s foremost Pilates expert and “The High Priestess of Pilates” (according to Sophie Dahl), Lynne Robinson is no way c-list celeb enough to feature on this blog in her own right. The woman has never even appeared in a pantomime. Let alone released a perfume or been interviewed by Zig and Zag.

Luckily for her, she made a Pilates DVD with Fern Britton in 2003 and gets a grudging invitation to CLCW as Fern’s plus-one.

This DVD was produced long before Fern’s dramatic weight loss and controversial fibbing about her gastric band in 2008 so she appears on the DVD in her retro large and mumsy body wearing a selection of flattering chiffony tops. She’s a whole different woman these days.

Not that you'd want to do Pilates in that skirt

This DVD is subtitled Body Control 7 as there were six (count ‘em)  other Lynne Robinson Pilates workouts before this one. Lynne includes a quick “Back to Basics” instructional segment at the end for anyone who’s just joining at this late stage but really I probably should have started at the beginning if I wanted to properly appreciate the whole workout and character development. It’s like watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows without having seen any of the others and spending the whole film going “Who’s that?” “Why’s he got a scar on his head?” “Where’s that guy’s nose gone?”

My Dark Lord's got no nose.

How does he smell?

Better than you, you filthy mudblood!

Fern doesn't appear in the Back to Basics section. Lynne is joined by a lady called Lorna and a skeleton who doesn't merit their introduction despite putting in sterling work demonstrating where all the bones are and which bits of us are supposed to bend.

Just get a room, you two.

The three sections with Fern are called ‘Morning’, ‘Lunchtime’ and ‘Evening’ because the ladies don’t just want you to do this EVERY day, they want you to do this ALL day. They’re insatiable

Lynne introduces at the beginning by saying “I’m really excited” while sounding like the least excited person ever.

Calm yourself, Lynn.

There’s a lot of emphasis on clenching your pelvic floor muscles in this workout in a move which Lynne calls the “Zip and Hollow”.

“There’s no polite way to say this,” says Lynne. “They’re the muscles which goes front to back and form a sling underneath.”

I see what you mean about there being no polite way of saying it. Sling? You dirty bitch.

She advises women to imagine that they are stopping the flow of water when they clench. Although I am pretty sure she means piss rather than water because I was trying to imagine myself sticking my finger a dyke and it was getting me nowhere.

For the male viewer, she advises trying to lift your crown jewels. “Or family jewels” she adds helpfully for anyone who was baffled by the crown jewels  reference but instantly recognises that their ‘family jewels’ are their testicles.

My what? Ohhhhhhhhhhh.

The morning workout is “energising”, the midday one “reviving” and the evening workout “calming” which certainly all seem the right way round. You can’t say she doesn’t think these things through.

The reviving midday workout contains exercises that you can do using a chair or a wall. Lynne assures that the exercises are perfect for doing while you’re away from home – maybe at the office – and won’t be embarrassing in public.

And you know, in an ideal world, we probably would all start swinging our legs around in the office of an afternoon. But apparently I’m old-fashioned enough at work to worry about coming across as a bit of a weirdo.

Just a normal day in the office.

Best Bit

This  is the first Pilates DVD we’ve featured here and it was just lovely. Pilates was invented about a hundred years ago by Herr Pilates who nicked the bits he liked from yoga, tai chi, gymnastics and bodybuilding. Most of this DVD consists of doing really satisfyingly big stretches.

Worst Bit

During the credits at the end of the DVD, a telephone number is provided for anyone wanting more information about Pilates. We’re promised we can call “24 hours 7 days a week”. Excited beyond measure at the prospect of Lynne Robinson sitting by her phone day and night in order to share her Pilates wisdom, I ran to the phone whooping like a toddler who’s been freebasing smarties.  But time marches on, dear reader and we folk in harsh, brutal 2013 can no longer enjoy the rich pleasures that were open to us in 2003.

“Sorry. This service is no longer available”. That is all.

If only.

Difficulty Level

There was no difficulty either doing the exercises or following lovely Lynne’s instruction. The only thing that would have been tricky would have been if Lynne had popped up at the end and quizzed us on all the anatomical terminology she’d been casually dropping into the conversation throughout the workout. Half the Back to Basics segment was basically in Latin.

I don't know the name of any of these body parts.

Would I do this workout again?

It seems a bit unnecessary to use a DVD in order to know how to stretch properly. But it turns out that I’m pretty rubbish at it unless I’m being talked through it by a fitness instructor standing next to  a TV presenter. I will be doing this one at least one more time because I want Lynne to talk me through pretending to lean over an enormous inflatable ball in order to make my back feel all stretched and lovely. It was great. I may even take my gigantic invisible ball into the office with me.

Lizzie Webb – Lizzie & Joggy Bear

Lizzie Webb - or “Mad Lizzie” if you want to use her gangster name - was the Keep Fit expert on TV-AM during the late eighties and early nineties. Joggy Bear was her co-presenter, youth ambassador and adopted son.

It’s a bit uncomfortable watching the interaction between Lizzie and Joggy on this video. I don’t doubt for a minute that Lizzie Webb loves Joggy dearly but I fear that their relationship isn’t entirely healthy,

Lizzie is clearly trying to tick all the Caring Parent boxes. She bakes cakes and makes sure Joggy brushes his teeth every morning. They have a lovely house in a leafy English village somewhere.

There’s a hint of emotional abuse about the relationship though. Throughout the workout, there is a constant barrage of criticism from Lizzie to Joggy. She tells him off for the state of his fairly tidy bedroom, huffily clearing some toys away and telling Joggy that he’ll trip over them and break his neck.  They’re on a table. The woman’s risk awareness is completely messed up.

 She makes continual references to Joggy’s weight. I know this is a fitness DVD and everything but give the poor guy a break, Lizzie.  “Look at that tummy! Joggy can’t even find his waist!” she shouts insensitively. She asks him to get off his bed telling him that it can barely contain his weight and says that he is getting so fat from eating sweets that they will need to do the exercises double-time.

The words of the theme tune tell us:  “Joggy Bear you’re the happiest bear we know” but I suppose it’s all relative. If you don’t know any other bears, then the one bear in your acquaintance will be the happiest.

Joggy really doesn’t seem happy. He spends a lot of time gesticulating behind Lizzie’s back. It’s hard to tell exactly what gestures he is trying to do with his paws because he might as well be wearing oven gloves. If Lizzie asks him to do something, he goes into an unresponsive sulk.

Everyone in the early 90s dressed like Nice Guy Eddie in Reservoir Dogs. It was the law.

At the end of the video, Lizzie reads a story from “Joggy’s Story Book”. It’s a rambling, baggy tale about how Joggy Bear went to see the band “Bruno & The Brunettes”.  It hasn’t picked up any literary awards.

The story, however, does raise a worrying question. How old is Joggy Bear, exactly?

His bedroom is decorated like a nursery with alphabet charts and a teddy bear shaped activity toy. There’s a height chart which only goes up to Joggy’s midriff. He is considerably taller than the adult he lives with.

 Not pictured: undercurrent of despair

In the story, Joggy goes a gig, meets up with Lulu who is clearly his girlfriend and then comes home unaccompanied late at night and lets himself in. The story is presented as something that happened in the recent past. Lizzie, tellingly, doesn’t appear in the story.

I think we have to face the reality that Joggy isn’t really a child. He is a young adult being forced to fulfil the role of a child by his domineering parent, unwilling – or unable – to accept the truth. It’s like Timothy Lumsden in ‘Sorry’. Or the guy in that Ian McEwan short story who sleeps in a cot and is spoon-fed by his mother until he is 17.

This is what life will be like when you're 42, Joggy. Think on.

Unable to stand up for himself, Joggy merely mumbles and groans and does rude paw gestures behind Lizzie back.

The anger is obviously bubbling under the surface.  During one of their morning warm-ups Lizzie has Joggy doing some boxing moves. Goaded beyond endurance by her shouts of “You can do better!” and “hit harder!”, Joggy smacks Lizzie in the face causing her to lose consciousness. She got off lightly, really. A single swipe from a Brown Bear can be deadly to humans. There have been cases where humans have had their heads completely crunched by bear bite. And they probably weren’t even telling them to tidy their bedroom at the time.

See kids, this is how you do violence properly.

Best Bit

Each section of the workout takes place on a consecutive day of the week. Monday through Friday we see Joggy Bear confined to the house with only Mad Lizzie for company. It is a bit of a relief come Saturday to see Joggy leave the house and go to his dance lesson.

We’ll gloss over the fact that its run by Lizzie and taking place at “Lizzie’s Dancing Studio” and  despite the fact that she’s clearly been running this business venture for a while, this is the first time that Joggy has been permitted to attend. We’ll also gloss over the fact that as soon as they arrive, Lizzie says to the class, “Sorry I’m late but it wasn’t my fault” while looking pointedly at Joggy.

Behave yourself Joggy. You don't want to have to go in the cellar again, do you?

I just think it’s nice that he got to spend some time out of the house with maybe the chance to make some new friends. Not best friends, of course.  We all know, a boy’s best friend is his mother.

Would I do this Workout Again?

Oh yeah, there was a workout in here somewhere, I forgot. It got lost amongst the familial dysfunction. I don’t think I can face stepping into the dark world of Bear and Webb again.

You know, Lizzie hasn’t been on television for a while, now. Perhaps Joggy finally had enough and pulled her head off.

Coleen Nolan – Disco Burn

“Are you IN THE MOOD for fat-burning?” asks the blurb at the front of the DVD box. Because Coleen was one of the Nolans, see? Who had a hit with “I’m IN THE MOOD for dancing”. Do you see what they did there? How they have cleverly linked the two things together?

But “Wait a minute” I hear you say in that plaintive – yet melodic – way you probably have, “Surely ‘fat-burning’ and ‘dancing’ aren’t the same things at all?” Oh, ho ho ho, you crazy foolish reader. I laugh in your ill-informed face.

Because if there is one thing Coleen Nolan has taught me (and I haven’t done the maths but ‘one’ does seem a plausible total number of things Coleen Nolan has taught me) it’s that fat burning and dancing like you are out with your mates at the discotheque are, in fact, totally the same thing!

Coleen says in her introduction that the workout is “like a night out with your friends when you’ve hit the dancefloor. Only without the sore feet because we’ll be wearing our trainers.”

There are a plethora of funky dance moves here to be sure but there are also times when Coleen is doing lunges, weight-lifting  and those leg-bendy exercises while holding onto the back of a chair. She must get some very strange looks at Flares.

Coleen is joined by Mikey Smith, an adorably chirpy fitness trainer who is both teeny-tiny and incredibly well-muscled. He looks like a Masters of The Universe action figure.

Like this fellow but without the fetching hat.

There are seven sections – including aerobics, toning, and core exercises which include some awesomely named moves such as the ‘Jiggly Squat’, the ‘Funky Squat’ and the ‘Travolta’.  But really this DVD is ALL about the music.

There is a fantastic collection of old-timey disco hits. It’s basically all the songs wedding DJs play to try to encourage people onto the dancefloor. There’s Kool & the Gang’s ‘Celebration’, Gloria Gaynor’s ‘ I Will Survive’, Donna Summer’s ‘Hot Stuff’ and of course the Nolan’s ‘I’m In the Mood for Dancing’. Because there would have been protests in the street had that one been left off. There are 15 proper songs in their proper original versions. It makes you wonder why so many other workout DVDs are so utterly appalling in this regard.

How Celebrity Workout DVD soundtracks are normally put together.

The song quality take a bit of a nosedive towards the end of the DVD which turns out to be because there are three Nolan’s songs which are not “I’m In the Mood for Dancing” and are therefore completely unrecognisable.

To be fair, you can’t expect the whole soundtrack to be of this quality:

 There is almost TOO MUCH cool here

The decision was clearly made to spend the budget on the music rights rather than set dressing. No jaunts off to Miami for Coleen. This was without question the right decision but it does leave us with a set that’s eerily stark in its minimalism.

There is no furniture, no floor, no walls. Just an expanse of whiteness and Coleen’s name in massive red letters.

Have you seen that bit in the Twilight Zone Movie with the kid who can control everything with the power of his brain? After wreaking badness, he uses his power to make everything disappear entirely and his teacher and he are left standing alone in the middle of nothingness. Coleen’s workout DVD is a bit like this. It looks like she has whisked Mikey away somewhere where he can spend the rest of eternity with her, her big red name and a selection of awesome dance tunes.

Right, it's just us now. Let's do some disco aerobics.

Worst Bit

Quite a few of the moves seemed to involve clicking your fingers as you did them. Now, I can’t click my fingers. Never been able to. I’ve managed to move on with my live and scratch together some kind of existence despite this disability. I was worried here that my lack of finger-clicking ability meant that I wasn’t doing this workout as fully as I might have been. My index fingers haven’t felt the burn.

Weirdest Bit

The second aerobic section is titled “Disco Aerobic Inferno” and while The Trammps’ ‘Disco Inferno’ is one of the songs on the soundtrack, bizarrely it features in a completely different section. What on earth was going on in the planning meetings for this DVD? Did they even have a spreadsheet?

See, Coleen. This is what professionalism looks like.

Difficulty Level

There was a lot of skipping about and dainty footwork which I couldn't really get the hang of. I would be laughed off any 70s disco dancefloor. Even if I wasn't doing sit-ups at the time.

Would I do this workout again?

 I think so. There’s a lot to be said for leaping about to groovy  70s disco hits. Coleen followed up this DVD with one entitled “Let’s get Physical” which includes an 80s soundtrack. Logically the next one should have a 1990s theme – perhaps a Grunge Workout with Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Nirvana on the soundtrack. You could do cool down stretches to “Rape Me”.

I think she should return to the 1970s though and have a funk themed one. Call it “Are you IN THE MOOD to get funky?” and incorporate all the following dance moves.