I try to keep what I write in the book and here as bright and breezy as possible. I don’t want to sound too dark – it would persuade few. Someone once referred to me as the ‘Eyeore of the left’ when I, of course, see myself as more Christopher Robin character. I can dream on. But there are times and events that just make you feel sad and disorientated. I read this weekend Denise Hendry, the wife of footballer Coin, who died at the age of 43 after a botched cosmetic surgery operation. She underwent liposuction surgery in 2002 in a private clinic and it went wrong. Denise, a mother of four, suffered multiple organ failures as a result of the surgery.
I can’t beg
in to imagine how devastated her family and friends must be. To die so young is awful but to die so needlessly in the pursuit of plastic perfection is just tragic. Around £1.2 billion will be spent in Britain this year on cosmetic surgery. Much of the industry is unregulated and the demand for it grows inextricable as we chase the dream of youth and bodily perfection. Our bodies have become our temple. Women as young as 19 are having breast surgery and Botox at 21. It is simply a sad condemnation of a society that is all consuming
We need something more to believe in than looking not just good but better and better – we need faith. Not necessarily in any religious sense but in terms of our ability to take control of our world and the lives the only way we can; together.
I would say that the saddest thing about all this is not the pursuit of perfection per se, but the idea for most that it can be bought. You can’t open a wallet to get stuff like that. Even the role models spend a lot of time and effort to get to look as they do. In the final event, if that is your idea of time well-spent….
What I loathe is the notion that buying this or that tube or treatment is going to make you into a sex-god. It won’t. If you’re fat and worried about it, stop eating crap and start exercising. You can’t buy the solution.