Shaggy dog story, this. Bear with me.
Back in April ‘17, on a whim, I decided to trek up to Newcastle on my tod for a Miss Swimsuit UK competition. I’d blogged about the Manchester heats previously, like this Manchester heat from 2016, and I’d been on nights out in Newcastle prior to that. It’s a great city. I figured it would be a challenge to travel there alone and see what happened. The events were fun and the special guests – cast from Ex on the Beach and Love Island – were usually friendly people. I got talking to couple of girls, Vikki and Emmerald. Emmerald Barwise is a professional pin-up model.
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| Newcastle Miss Swimsuit heat |
This week, Emmerald was a subject on Channel 4’s Know Your Shit, a programme about bowel movements and gut health. Episode 1, featuring Emmerald, is available on the Channel 4 website, along with the rest of the series.
The producers grasped the nettle (without wiping with it) and interviewed brave contributors who have problems in that, uh, area. It’s all delivered in a trendy and quite matter-of-fact way, with the intention of (I guess) flushing away the taboo around pooing. Contributors stepped forward with their problems, and medical experts in the field of proctology advised them on how to poo properly.
News to me that Emmerald had these issues, but then I haven’t seen her since 2019 after she invited me to another Miss Swimsuit competition. She didn’t, at the time, however, tell me where this competition was. I couldn’t find much info online. On the night of the event, she’d not replied.
This is where things went dumb.
I decided to head out to Manchester and see if I could figure it out. There was no publicity over social media, certainly not from the Miss Swimsuit UK account. Eventually, a few Instagram stories started to emerge, from reality TV stars who tend to judge hte competition or just appear as a guest.
I pinned the building down to an office block in Spinningfields. Just out of curiosity – of I-started-so-I’ll-finish mentality – I waited to see who came out. The Miss Swimsuit CEO emerged, as did Emmerald, and a few women (presumably competitors). They got in a taxi and headed to Cirque, at the time a newly opened club in the former Press Club unit on Deansgate. The traffic was that bad I could walk faster than they were driven.
I spoke to Emmerald outside the club, and she was predictably standoffish. She’d got guestlist for her group. She left me outside.
I felt a bit guilty for practically stalking her, but, for fuck’s sake, she invited me out. She told me about the event. I went home and blocked her on all platforms.
It was just on a whim this week that I decided to have a look at her insta and saw that she’s a contributor to the aforementioned poo programme. I unblocked, but didn’t follow her.
There were a few other Miss Swimsuit UK competitions that I attended, some with Emmerald. Back in 2017 she needed a lift to Liverpool, where she was competing in a heat, so I figured I’d go with her and write up the event afterwards. There’s a lot, however, that didn’t make it into the blog post.
After the competition, there was an afterparty in Heaven, the gay club. There’s another (non-gay) story to tell about that, but that’s another blog post. After that afterparty, a few of us headed to The Hilton, where someone had booked a room, I’m guessing the Miss Swimsuit CEO.
A room of about 6 of us sat talking, telling jokes and stories ‘til the sun came up. It seems we’d made a bit of noise. A large, African security guard knocked on, telling us there’d been complaints. One of the guys had answered the door, and was trying to placate the guard. We’ll keep it down.
Meanwhile, Emmerald has stripped out of her dress. “Watch this,” she says, pulling her knickers down. She approaches the guy from behind. “Babe?” she asks, in full few of the guard. “Are you coming back to bed?”
The guard toddled off, and so did Emmerald and I not long after (and after she’d but her clothes back on, obviously), back to Manchester.
Episode 2 airs this Tuesday, Ch4, 8pm.
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| Manchester Miss Swimsuit heat |
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