STATUE Nowadays you see living statues all over the world.They wear elaborate costumes and body paint, andstand without moving for hours. But what's it like? Is itdifficult? I spoke to Nina, a living statue in London.'You need to be physically and mentally fit. It'sactually quite hard standing still, and you have to eatbefore you start or you feel ill.'We wear body paint so we look like real metal orstone statues. Metallic paint takes over an hour to puton and it's difficult to get off, too. Every week I havea sauna to clean my skin. I love designing differentcostumes and being creative. We even paint ourclothes to make them look heavy. In the winter youneed to wear thermal underwear under your costumeso you don't shiver with cold.I've worked at glamorous birthday parties for famouspeople, and in parks in the rain, and I've just been tothe World Championships in Holland. There were 300statues and 300, 000 visitors. It was incredible! Mostpeople love us but sometimes young children arefrightened and I've seen one or two cry!'Antonio Santos from Barcelona holds the world recordfor standing still, an incredible 20 hours, 11 minutesand 38 seconds, but the longest Nina has stoodwithout moving is two and a half hours, at a party, 'It was awful! So now, I move. If someone gives memoney, I blow a kiss or do a dance to say thank you:And of course if you need to sneeze or something, you have to come alive' and make it part of theperformance. It's hard work but fun!'​