Daily Mail - 04.03.2020

Daily Mail, Wednesday, March 4, 2020^ Page 17

F

i o n a B r u c e i s

a l m o s t u n i q u e

among her genera-

tion of high-profile

female presenters in

that she has never — so she

says — succumbed to the

temptation of Botox.

in an industry where frozen fore-

heads abound, she remains stead-

fastly untouched by the needle at

5 5, even though, as she puts it: ‘if

you don’t do it, as i don’t, you look

pretty rough by comparison.’

i think she’s being a bit hard on

herself. With her impeccable poise

and perpetual low-key glamour,

Bruce is the last person i would

describe as looking ‘rough’.

But there is undoubtedly some-

thing in what she says. Women

these days view their appearance

with an increasingly critical eye,

often striving to achieve impossible

levels of perfection in a world that

seems to value appearance above

almost everything else.

it’s not just those who make a

living on screen who feel this need;

thanks to the popularity of image-

based social media platforms such

as instagram, we all spend more

time scrutinising our own reflec-

tions than is perhaps good for us.

and i should know. This time last

year i had a thread lift, ostensibly

for a magazine article but if i’m

honest because, like Fiona Bruce, i

was feeling somewhat ‘rough’.

i wanted to look and feel just that

little bit glossier, more confident —

less like the rather cross, increas-

ingly jowly person who greeted me

every morning in the mirror.

A

Thread lift is a little

more involved than

Botox: in essence it

involves inserting a

number of barbed threads under

the skin which are then tightened

to lift the tissues of the face.

over time the threads dissolve,

leaving the lift in place.

it wasn’t exactly painless; but it

was quick, and it was effective. i

left the clinic looking a little

ch i p m u n k y b u t o t h e r w i s e

unscathed, and went straight to a

lunch meeting.

over the course of the following

weeks and months, my skin grew

smoother and my face less saggy.

But perhaps more importantly, for

the first time in years i felt quite

good about myself. and, shallow as

that may seem, it was the best

feeling ever.

We live in a world where there is

an entire new female aesthetic,

fuelled by the rise of celebrities

s u c h a s Ky l i e J e n n e r, K i m

K a r d a s h i a n a n d t h e i r m a n y

im i t a t o r s , w h o s e a p p e a r a n c e

relies heavily on the work of

cosmetic surgeons.

among such social media ‘influ-

encers’, Botox and fillers and all

the rest are no longer the excep-

t i o n , t h e y a r e t h e n o r m —

‘instagram Face’, they call it.

and Fiona Bruce is right: these

pouting paragons of perfection do

make the rest of us look ‘rough’.

even if you know it’s all fake, it’s

hard not to be seduced by it.

no wonder more and more of us

are succumbing. according to a

recent survey, 40 per cent of British

adults are considering a non-surgi-

cal treatment in the next 12

months. in the uK alone, the

market for these treatments is

projected to rise to more than

£3 billion a year within five years.

Like it or not, having one’s facial

e x p r e s s i o n s t w e a k e d i s f a s t

becoming no more unusual than a

visit to the dentist.

The sad truth is that we are not

all blessed with Fiona’s solid,

sensible resolve — least of all me. i

admire her tremendously. But i fear

she may be fighting a losing battle.

SarahVine

Sorry, I’m not

blessed with

Fiona Bruce’s

steely resolve

to shun Botox

Mrs HincH, a former

hairdresser from Essex

and an instagram

‘cleanfluencer’, has had

twice as many pre-orders

for her Little Book Of Lists

as two-times Booker

Prize winner Dame Hilary

Mantel for the latest part

of her acclaimed Tudor

trilogy. Mrs Hinch, who

has 3.2 million instagram

followers, describes her

magnum opus as ‘a

whole book filled with

just lists! notebook

goals! My idea of

absolute heaven!’

And to think we used to be

nation of literary giants...

iTALiAns have been told to

observe a one metre

exclusion zone around

themselves in an attempt to

halt the spread of the

coronavirus. To anyone who

knows the tactile italians as i

do, that’s like telling an

Englishman not to mention

the weather. in other words,

we’re all doomed.

sTELLA MccArTnEy

reinforces her animal

rights credentials by sending

a menagerie of models

dressed as furry friends —

foxes, cows, rabbits, horses

and even a cuddly crocodile

— down the catwalk in Paris.

she does know, doesn’t she,

that fake fur is about as

environmentally unfriendly

as you can get, made as it is

from plastic? Oh, the pitfalls

of being right-on.

The house of Balmain is the

latest venerable fashion

house to have sold its soul to

the ranks of the rapper-ati.

Where once its founder,

Monsieur Pierre Balmain,

presided over exquisitely

tailored creations, now the

company makes overpriced

trainers and rubber onesies

f o r t h e l i k e s o f K i m

Kardashian, who strode

around the capital of fashion

this week looking as though

she’d escaped from some

S&M party.

i’m not much of a fashion-

ista myself, but i am lucky

enough to own a vintage

Pierre Balmain coat dating

from the mid-Fifties.

it’s a little threadbare, but

it still draws compliments,

thanks to its expert tailoring

and timeless cut. i can’t

imagine Ms Kardashian’s

tawdry creation will stand a

similar test of time.

Kardashian trash-ion

Clean sweep over Mantel

[email protected]

Columnist

of the year

Back in 2009 I

caught swine flu, or

H1N1 to give it its proper

name. It was absolutely

horrible, made worse by

the fact that the

publication I was

working for at the time

kept ringing me up every

five minutes asking me to

write about how I felt.

Write? I could barely

open my eyes.

I spent several days

in bed and then got

tonsillitis, which

turned into a quinsy (a

medieval-sounding

ailment that basically

amounts to an abscess on

the tonsils), and after

that, pneumonia.

But I survived.

By all accounts,

coronavirus sounds much

less unpleasant, plus it

only really causes

complications in the very

elderly or those with

underlying conditions.

Of course, we must all

take precautions. But let’s

not turn a pandemic into

a panicdemic.

I’m glad Prince

Harry took

advantage of his visit

to the Uk to spend

some time with his

grandmother at Windsor.

apparently they

exchanged warm words,

and the monarch, 93, told

him he will ‘always be

welcomed back’. The

Queen is the only one to

come out of this hoo-ha

with any integrity. god

only knows how this

royal band of flakes

and fools will cope

when she’s gone.

THErE is something depressingly

inevitable about the tale of Keira Bell

(left), 23, the young woman who was

given drugs to help her transition to

male — and who is now suing an nHs

Trust for negligence on the grounds

that, aged 16, she was too young to

make an informed decision.

For years, experts have been warn-

ing of such a possibility, arguing that

vulnerable young people should not

be making irreversible decisions

about their gender. The response

from the powerful transgender lobby

has been predictable: online hyste-

ria, accusations of transphobia and

conspiring to deny trans people their

rights. Meanwhile, politicians who

should know better have caved in to

their demands, further endangering

the wellbeing of people like Keira.

Of course, we should respect the

medical needs of transgender peo-

ple. But we also have a responsibility

to distinguish between cases that are

genuine and those that are born out

of other issues. And yet, as i write, it

is still possible for a child to begin

hormone treatment — as Keira did —

after as few as three therapeutic

assessments. in other words, a teen-

ager can embark on a course of

treatment that will result in irrevers-

ible physical changes, including

potentially rendering themselves

infertile, with about as much thought

as they might give to getting a tattoo.

That is not progress, that is child

abuse — and it must stop.

Keira’s fight for vulnerable young