Spitting in the eye of the beholder

Don't hate us because we're beautiful.



Hate you because you're beautiful? Are you kidding? It's your only saving grace! We hate you because you're simpering, dunderheaded, simplistic, patronising, trivial, superficial, irritating, offensive, overpaid, insipid, braindead, iniquitous, spoiled, halfwitted, meaningless and just plain stupid. We can think of about 762 reasons to hate you, and being beautiful doesn't make the list.



(OK, if we're honest it might sneak in at 761.)

I scrub up all right, possess a certain sleight of hand, can 'pass' as they say... Friends routinely remark upon the attention that I draw in public...

...I was deputy chief leader writer of the Times at the time.

My life is brilliant.

In straight men the reaction can be still more unnerving (and here I have gone beyond buttock-clenching and find myself nail biting and tugging my hair).
Declarations of love at first sight have been the least unpalatable

My love is pure.

Based on my looks, the assumption tends to be that I am ethereal, unworldly, a receptacle for romantic fantasy; or flighty, provocative, somewhere where lust might be parked

I saw an angel.

or flighty, provocative, somewhere where lust might be parked. Beauty, the scant portion I can claim of it, has proved double-edged to say the least.

Of that I'm sure.

'I know I am attractive, and, yes, when I walk down the street people do look at me. I'm tall, muscular and black

You're beautiful.

'I never feel I look good and in a way it's a good thing. The constant insecurity keeps you grounded.'

You're beautiful.

'People who haven't seen me for 10 years are always really surprised in a "Wow, is that really you?" type way.'

You're beautiful, it's true.

If I go to a bar I am never chatted up, where an average-looking friend would be. Men steer clear. I'd think: "Bloody hell. What's wrong with me?" If you are attractive, men are put off.'

I saw your face in a crowded place,

I'm always supposed to have batted my eyelashes, wrapped someone around my little finger, had my way with them. My looks may help me through the door, but they're a liability once I get in there.

And I don't know what to do,

As an actress of 21, loathing the superficiality of her career and the men attracted by it, Pilar Santelices, 28, opted to become a pre-novice nun,

'Cause I'll never be with you.







No really, we don't hate you because you are beautiful. We hate you because you insult us once a month with consumerist trash. We hate you because you serve us a fucked-up facsimile of womanhood and expect us to fill our faces with it. We hate you because you run features with all the insight, wit and verve of THAT fucking song by that creepy half-pint of whinging, wailing subway-stalking, Cockney rhyming slang-monikered twunt.



Meanwhile:



The facelift king of America



Oh well, here's a surprise. Just in case you've been left feeling a little less than beautiful by the rest of this month's OWM, the solution is at hand. Just $25,000 for each lift; a further $10,000 to lift the eyes, and $10,000 more to lift the brow. It doesn't say how much to hack off your breasts.

Dr Sherrell Aston tells Polly Vernon the secret of a good face-lift and why, if pushed, he'd happily take the knife to his own daughters

Will give a new meaning to the phrase 'they get their good looks from their father.'

He is certainly rich enough to pursue sexily flamboyant lifestyle choices. He exists in a flurry of hand-tailored Brioni suits and Hermès ties. He has been called the Imelda Marcos of the tie world; he owns loads: 'Seventy-five per cent of which are red, not for any special reason'. His shirts are custom-made, as are his shoes. He drives a Porsche

Whoo! Cracking score on our Polly Bingo cards.

His credentials are astounding. 'He does beautiful face-lifts,' says Wendy Lewis, the leading independent plastic-surgery consultant,

You're beautifu... oh don't start that again.

"I'm greeted at Aston's offices by Bernadette McGoldrick, director of operations for this private clinic; an affable, sweet fortysomething redhead, a card-carrying Aston's Angel.

She apologises effusively for his lateness, and gets me a Diet Coke. I snoop round his suite of rooms, which are ornate, mahogany, Baccarat-crystal and rich-rug strewn, the antithesis of the cold, sterile environments one expects from doctors' surgeries. There are tasteful antiques and objets, many of which, Bernadette explains, are gifts from grateful clients. On the walls are endless snaps of Dr and Mrs Aston and celebrity pals - with Prince Charles (in a kilt) at Buckingham Palace, with the Carters, with the Clintons..."

Oh Polly, stop it you're killing us.

"Then Aston arrives. He's dressed in full double-breasted Brioni splendour, a look which enhances the mannered, Rhett Butler-ish dash. I am instantly charmed - just as his detractors and fans alike promised I would be. He's short, he's wiry, he's got a lot of hair, and a smooth face, but doesn't give away much either."

My love is beautiful, my love is pure, I saw an angel, of that I'm... AAAAAAaaaaaargh

Would I 'have an Aston' when the time came? Would I let him slice into the flesh on my face, peel my skin back like a Halloween mask, rootle about with tissue beneath it, repositioning and readjusting it? All because I can't face the fact of ageing? Would I? I actually don't know. I'll get back to you.

You know the answer, we know the answer, who exactly are you trying to kid?







the quiet life of Kerry Katona



We like Kerry Katona lots here at OWMMS. If you disagree - if you think she's some kind of bad role model, if you think she's just a vapid celebrity and some kind of wart on the face of civilisation, then you're just wrong, OK? We care about Kerry. We cry for her in hard times. We vote for her in the jungle. We might even buy her novel.



(OK, that last one was an downright lie, but you get the picture.)

Anyway silly old me because it turns out Kerry Katona is huge out there in red-top country where the real people live

Oh excuse us while we nip out in our tracksuits to Iceland for a bottle of White Lightning, 20 Berkeleys and a copy of the Sun. We wouldn't want to clutter the view for the beautiful people.