‘I'm really weak' – Chris Kamara gives health update as Sky Sports legend reveals new role
CHRIS KAMARA admitted 'I'm really weak' after giving a health update while securing a new role.
The Sky Sports legend, 67, was forced to step back from broadcasting two years after being diagnosed with apraxia of speech (AOS).
1
The condition sees sufferers struggle to speak as the brain is unable to properly control the muscles used to form words.
Kamara exclusively told The Sun last month that he had travelled to Mexico for treatment.
He also suffers from dyspraxia, which affects his balance and coordination.
And now, the fan favourite has managed to land himself a new role.
For one day only, Kamara will be serving free chip butties at Camden Market with Burton's Fish 'N' Chips on Friday June 6.
The surprise gig was carefully considered before being accepted by Kamara because of his AOS and dyspraxia.
And he admits his health battle has left him feeling 'really weak' overall.
Kamara told The Star: 'I'm choosy these days.
"That's what's happened with the work because even though I've got the acceptance of my condition, I still don't want to put myself in a situation where it comes back to bite me.
'So I'm not like the old Chris Kamara who would say yes to the opening of an envelope.
What is apraxia of speech?
Apraxia of speech is a condition which makes talking difficult, with sufferers knowing what they'd like to say, but having trouble communicating their words.
The NHS says that the condition can be extremely frustrating for people.
They explained: "Frequently the person with apraxia will have difficulties with conversational speech. However they may be good at 'automatic' speech tasks such as counting, swearing, repeating rhymes, greetings and farewell.
It's usually caused by damage to the left side of the brain, such as a stroke.
The condition does not affect a person's understanding and the symptoms of the condition can vary occurring to the severity of the disorder.
The main symptoms are:
being able to say a word correctly one minute and then not the next
difficulty at the beginning of words
greater difficulty with longer words
aware of mistakes but unable to correct them
speaking slowly
being better at 'automatic tasks' such as counting and singing.
"Whereas now I'm a bit more choosy and will I put myself in a situation where it won't work out alongside my apraxia, I have dyspraxia, which affects your balance.
'So I'm weak, really weak, and you know, going down these stairs isn't great.
"Going up these stairs is fine, but going down these stairs, the brain tells you you're going to fall even though you probably won't, so you have to hold on to the banister and getting on planes and things like that.'
On his dyspraxia, Kamara added: 'Walking is fine but the thing is if I trip I can't put my arms out anymore to stop my fall, so if I was riding a bike, when you stop, the brain won't allow your feet to go down and stop you falling.
'You just fall over the sides, it's crazy, but the brain is so complex, it's amazing.
'I didn't realise the compartments of the brain, where if you talk in an accent. So (for me) I advise speaking in a Scottish accent.
"The flow is quicker than my normal speeds, which is crazy, but that's the brain for it.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
23 minutes ago
- Times
Tobias Menzies on F1: I don't find racing very gripping. I prefer tennis
Every American alpha in an action flick needs an unmacho British foil, someone who, just through their awkward presence, can make the star look even cooler. In the Indiana Jones films Harrison Ford had Denholm Elliott, in Mission: Impossible Tom Cruise had Simon Pegg, and now, in F1: The Movie, Brad Pitt has Tobias Menzies. While Pitt's Formula 1 driver, Sonny Hayes, is a laconic straight-shooter steeped in racing nous, Menzies's money man, Peter Banning, is a jittery obfuscator who has binge-watched Drive to Survive to get up to speed. Swaggering he is not. It's a role deftly played in unfamiliar conditions by Menzies, 51, who is known around the world as Edmure Tully in Game of Thrones and for his Emmy-winning portrayal of Prince Philip opposite Olivia Colman's Elizabeth in The Crown. 'I haven't really done these sorts of films before,' he says, talking in a café near his home in northwest London. In a $300 million juggernaut such as F1, seizing the moment is all. 'You've got these tiny little pirouettes of character and story, and then drive, drive, action, action.' • Inside F1: The Movie – how Brad Pitt hit 180mph (with Lewis Hamilton's help) Physicality, Menzies decided, could convey more than words, so he gave his character a Tim Henman-style fist-pump celebration. Banning, a board member on Hayes's team, was pitched to him as 'a sort of classic English gent, suited and booted, and I was like, that feels in danger of being a cliché'. He left the suits to Javier Bardem, who plays the team boss, and suggested that his character be more of a tech bro, clad in a casual 'but unbelievably expensive' wardrobe à la Succession. Pitt he found to be 'delightfully straight' and 'very unstatusy — when he's on set, he just likes to play the scene'. Except that some scenes involved him driving an F1 car at 180mph. 'What I love about the film is just how fast it looks,' Menzies says. 'Brad said he found it unbelievably rewarding and my sense was that he'd gotten very good at it.' Over the period of filming Pitt's lap times got a second faster, an eternity in the sport. Menzies didn't get to drive an F1 machine — how fast has he gone in a reasonably priced car? 'I probably haven't even broken 100.' 'The challenge of the movie star is a different thing — he's got to carry the story,' he says of Pitt. 'Clooney, Brad, these guys are bringing something suffused with their own natural charisma and attractiveness.' Like his character, Menzies wasn't familiar with F1. 'There's a crazy circus quality to it — these teams just land for three days in this place and then move on. It's like theatre on steroids.' They filmed guerrilla-style at real grands prix in the UK, Abu Dhabi, Hungary and Italy. He remembers shooting on the grid at Silverstone ten minutes before the start of a real race. 'All the real drivers were there, the real crowd. We had to run out of there because the cars had to take off for the warm-up lap. That was my first day and I'm like, this is nuts.' The film was endorsed by the sport's governing body and its authenticity extends to rampant product placement. 'It's an expensive film to make,' he says. 'And the product placement doesn't pop so much because you're used to seeing it in Formula 1.' The movie is full of plugs for Ninja air fryers but he didn't get a free one. 'I obviously wasn't in on those days.' So is Menzies now an F1 convert or was it just a work thing? 'It might, whisper it, be the latter,' he says. 'It's a very strange world and, if I'm totally honest, as a spectator I didn't find it very gripping. When you're watching the track, sometimes you wouldn't know who had gone past.' He is more of a tennis guy and an all-year swimmer in the Hampstead Heath ponds. • Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews Born in London to a radio producer father and a teacher mother, Menzies went to a Steiner school in Canterbury and trained at Rada, where his peers included Sally Hawkins and Maxine Peake. 'Maxine was already a bit of a star — when we were there she had a TV documentary made about her,' he says. He politely avoids talking about his private life, having graced gossip columns in the Noughties while dating Kristin Scott Thomas, 14 years his senior. After breaking through in 2005 as an anguished Brutus in HBO's Rome, these days he generally gets recognised for Game of Thrones, the time-travelling historical fantasy Outlander and The Crown, although fans of the last of those are as restrained as the royals. 'They don't tend to come up to you,' he says. Many of Menzies's characters are quite buttoned up. 'That's a bit who I am, but not completely. I'm more of a mess than Philip — he's a lot more alpha. I find life a lot more challenging.' Contained acting is also 'what I'm drawn to, where it doesn't show me everything straight away'. Seeing Stephen Dillane in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing at the Donmar Warehouse in 1999 was formative. 'There was an ambivalence about his relationship with the audience — it wasn't necessarily kind or appealing. The inside is bigger than the outside.' For Menzies that interiority comes with fierce self-criticism. At the F1 premiere he talked to Hans Zimmer, the film's composer. 'He was like, 'I hardly like anything I've written — I ask directors to tell me whether it's shit or not shit.' I'm similar.' So what's the least bad thing he's done? 'The episode in The Crown that juxtaposed Philip's midlife crisis with the moon landings,' he says. Philip would never admit to having a crisis 'so he needs this other thing to communicate it through. My internal critic wasn't too savage on that one.' Menzies can play lighter, from his deadpan gynaecologist in Catastrophe to Edmure, his hapless nobleman in Game of Thrones, who was the groom at the infamous Red Wedding ('I left the room and everyone died') and had a hilarious scene in the very last episode of the show, where he made a pitch for being king before his niece, Sansa Stark, told him, 'Uncle — sit down.' 'There was a happy little accident there,' Menzies says. 'I turn and my scabbard bangs against the tent pole. That wasn't in the script, it happened in rehearsal.' His next film, The Entertainment System Is Down, is about as far from F1 as you could get. Co-starring Keanu Reeves and Kirsten Dunst, and directed by Ruben Ostlund, the Swede who made The Square and Triangle of Sadness, it's about a plane en route from London to Sydney whose in-flight entertainment goes kaput. 'It becomes, in a very Ruben Ostlund way, a dark social commentary about what happens when you remove the screens from our society,' Menzies says. 'It's a huge opiate, maybe the biggest drug that we're all consuming. 'I can be obsessive about work but I found my match in Ruben. He's highly demanding — you do a minimum of 25 takes. Often his films have a comedic element but anything that feels acted he can't bear. Which is absolutely my taste as well.' Like Triangle of Sadness, the film shows a spectrum of society: pilots and stewardesses, upper class and economy. Menzies plays one of a group of Australian cricket fans who have just seen their team beat England in the Ashes. 'We're a source of chaos and entertainment,' he says. 'It came out of Ruben meeting a group of Australian guys at a barbecue and being really taken by a particular kind of Australian masculinity — unapologetic, front-footed, a lot of jokes.' Ostlund, like many directors, knows that Menzies can be a whole lot more than the token weedy Brit.F1: The Movie is in cinemas from June 25
The Sun
28 minutes ago
- The Sun
Maya Jama reveals secret connection to Love Island boy that's never been mentioned in the villa
LOVE Island host Maya Jama has revealed a secret connection to one of the hunks in the villa. On last night's Aftersun, Maya surprised the audience and viewers at home when she shared she was already aware of a brooding bombshell before the latest series began. 4 The TV star told how model brother Omar runs in the same circles in Britsol as Shea Mannings, though added: "Oh no, I won't spill his tea. Let me skip back." So far, Shea has had no luck finding a suitable partner and many feel he lacks the personality to be a memorable villa star. However, last night, during a game of spin the bottle, Shea came to life when he was tasked with going around each Islander individually and telling them the word he'd use to describe them. Some of his choices were savage with calling Helena a "mug", Alima "hard work" and Toni a "b**ch". Shea's luck could be about to change though with the arrival of two new female bombshells. Blonde stunner Caprice Alexandra, who looks to be a travel bunny, has arrived in the villa. Her Instagram is filled with curvy bikini snaps from the likes of Mauritius and Morocco. She's joined by Poppy Harrison, who has set foot in the ITV2 show after calling time on her latest relationship last week. A source told us: 'Poppy is super flirtatious on a night out and I could see her fitting in well with this year's cast. 'She is a fan of the show." They continued: "Her split came with her ex came out of the blue - her boyfriend wasn't expecting it at all. "She's a smart girl and is likely heading into the villa with a gameplan." Poppy boasts over 8,000 followers on Instagram, giving her fans a glimpse into her luxurious lifestyle. She can be seen skiing with influencer pal, Maddie Eastham, showing off her designer purchases and sunning herself in Cannes. 4 4
The Sun
28 minutes ago
- The Sun
Gareth Bale breaks silence on bid to buy EFL club as Tottenham icon spills beans on red carpet at F1 The Movie premiere
GARETH BALE has confirmed he wants to buy Cardiff - and take his hometown club back to the Premier League. The Wales legend is leading a consortium interested in taking over the League One side and opened up about his plans at the premiere of F1 The Movie. 1 Bale, who retired from football two years ago after a spell with Los Angeles FC, saw an initial bid rejected by Bluebirds owner Vincent Tan. But Bale is still dreaming a takeover can be successful. He said on the red carpet: "We are interested in getting Cardiff. "It's my home (town) club, it's where I grew up and my uncle used to play for them. "To be involved with an ownership group would be a dream come true. "It's a club close to my heart. It's where I grew up and I would love to be able to be a part of growing Cardiff and taking it to the Premier League where it belongs. "I know how amazing the Welsh fans and Cardiff fans are. It would be amazing to try and do something together. "We are trying to engage with Cardiff and more news will come out on that in the future but hopefully we can get something done." Bale, who had a glittering at Tottenham and Real Madrid, had been linked with a takeover at Plymouth Argyle. He led Wales to their first World Cup since 1958 as well as appearing at two Euros finals, including the incredible run to the 2016 semi-finals. Bale is also his nation's most-capped player on 111 caps and record goalscorer after netting 41 times. Bale's interest in investing in Cardiff comes just weeks after ex-Spurs and Real team-mate Luka Modric became a co-owner of south Wales rivals Swansea. Cardiff appointed Brian Barry-Murphy recently ahead of their first campaign in the third tier since 2003. After Omer Riza was sacked in April, Wales star Aaron Ramsey was interim boss for three games but Bale's close pal is set for a move to continue his playing career in Mexico.
