The Beauty Industry

Fear And Insecurity Created By The Beauty Industry ..
Imagine walking into that beauty salon on the high street, laying on the couch and the woman in the fake nurse’s outfit starting her spiel: “Now, if you just lie there I’m going to rub sheep’s afterbirth on your cheeks. If that doesn’t work I’ve got some bird droppings we can smear over you”.
What?
You’d be out the door in seconds.
But not it seems Victoria Beckham and other wealthy delusionals in Los Angeles who are paying up to £320 to have sheep placenta facials (and not any old placentas either, they’re flown in specially from New Zealand where they’ve been untouched by the modern world).
Victoria is also apparently a big fan of ‘nightingale poop’ treatments too.
Nice.
But it’s not just Victoria.
Simon Cowell has taken to breathing canned oxygen and Demi Moore has used leeches to purify her blood.
All to stay young.
It’s the ultimate proof that you can have more money than sense.
So why have we all been suckered into frittering away our hard-earned money on treatments which might have some minor effect in the short term but can never actually stop the clock?
And how come someone as supposedly savvy as Victoria Beckham falls for such horse (or in this case sheep) shit?
It’s fear of course – fear that with every forming wrinkle we become a little more invisible in a youth-obsessed world.
It’s a fear and insecurity created by beauty industry bosses who have worked very hard to take away the joy that used to come with ageing, of wrinkles that bore witness to triumphs and tragedies, and laughter lines that showed a life truly lived.
Surely after 15 years and four kids Victoria can’t be so insecure that she thinks bird mess is the only thing standing between herself and being traded in by David for a younger model?
Sadly, it looks that way.
( Alison Phillips )

Simon Cowell Likes To Think Of Himself As James Bond ..
From the evidence presented in this overlong book, Simon Cowell is both a bit dull and a bit odd, with precious little in between.
His oddity is largely confined to his cosmetic regime.
Apparently, he travels everywhere with two large suitcases containing any amount of special face-creams, eyedrops, milk lotions, bath salts and so forth.
He swallows a saucerful of tablets daily, and has vitamins injected into his body once a week.
Twice a year, he is injected with Botox.
His chest is waxed, his teeth capped, his hair dyed.
Nor does the bottom half of his body pass untended.
Until he was 36 years old, Simon Cowell was one of the also-rans and hangers-on with which the record business is stuffed.
In X Factor terms, he was one of those talent-free first-round losers whom he nowadays delights in cutting down to size.
He had been given countless leg-ups by his father, who was a cigar-toting, E-Type-driving director of EMI Records, but young Simon was somehow so incompetent that everything he touched turned to dust.
He became famous when he appeared as a judge on Pop Idol.
What of Cowell’s sex life?
Tom Bower, author of the book, provides a dutiful inventory of the former lap-dancers and topless models Cowell has courted, but most of their time seems to have been taken up with borrowing his make-up.
Cowell likes to think of himself as James Bond, but on this evidence he is rather closer to Benny Hill.
( Craig Brown )

The Most Ill-Mannered Brat Ever To Be Reared In Brooklyn ..
Bobby Fischer was born in Chicago in 1943.
His father’s identity is uncertain.
The two possible candidates, Gerhardt Fischer and Paul Nemenyi, were both physicists.
His mother worked hard and moved Bobby and his sister around a great deal.
In 1950 they settled in Brooklyn.
Bobby was a remarkable but difficult child.
He had a very high IQ but no interest in academic work.
At the age of six he discovered chess and immediately showed great promise.
The tall, toothy prodigy became World Chess Champion at the age of 29 after beating the Russian Boris Spassky in Reykjavik.
It was a major victory for America during the Cold War and for American chess in an age of Soviet dominance, but no triumph for the reputation of Fischer’s manners.
During the match, he made numerous demands and complaints, prompting the Daily Mail to call him ‘quite certainly the most ill-mannered temperamental and neurotic brat ever to be reared in Brooklyn’.
The Spassky match was one of the greatest of all time, but it marked the end of Fischer’s career.