Face Fix Is A Doggie Look

How Not to Get Old is a Channel 4 programme. Not being born is one way - who'd willingly choose the other? So, the idea is to sell the gullible dubious treatments for silly money.

Take the guy who paid £1,000 to have his face frozen. He got £600 worth of moisturiser, but at Boots you'd need a truck to take that lot away. He had a small box.

Then the poor woman with no teeth. Nice enough face, except they kept telling her it was hollow. It wasn't. She ended up with a fantastic smile and two tennis balls in her cheeks. She looked like my Staffie Marley when he's being greedy with his toys. It's not a great look on him, it was horrific on her. And if they slip...

I can understand why she went in for it and the teeth were amazing. It's just that these beauty types never know when to stop, do they?

Safe Sex For Swiss

Got to admire the Swiss. All those pristine streets, fancy watches, holey cheese and cute cuckoo clocks. And those sexy little knives. Quite a legacy, all told. Then there's the money of course, they have lots of that.

They are also wonderfully pragmatic about the seamy side of life. What shall we do with the street sex? Shove it all in a coloured box. Let the punters drive by, see what takes their fancy, then cruise in. Install showers for the girls, because the Swiss are, above all else, clean.

It's the new solution to prostitution in Zurich, where the £1.74m  scheme is is popular with residents. The booths look like the sort of thing you see at outdoor pools. Customers drive in and have sex in their cars. There's even a panic button on the passenger side.

Sounds good to me. Anything that makes life safer for sex workers is welcome. If you can't beat it, deal with it. So Swiss. so sensible.

Get Your Mum To Choose Your Girl Louis Smith

Stay out of a young man's sex life. It's a good rule, but one I'm prepared to break for beautiful, sexy athlete Louis Smith. He of Olympic and Strictly fame. A man of many parts and all of them gorgeous.
He wants a wife. Here's my advice - get your mum to choose for you. That sounds weird to me too, but hold on. Louis is a lovely bloke, whose body had even old hack John Snow on Channel 4 News drooling. Completely flummoxed by so much male beauty Snow was lost for words. Fabulously funny.
Louis is a simple soul who is grateful for his gifts and visits schools to tell other kids that a poor start in a one-parent family need not hold you back. Listening to his mum, who told him: " Be sensible. Get a roof over your head," he bought himself a house instead of a Ferrari. He's 24 now and wants the next woman in his life to be the one who gives him the family he craves.
So get your mum to choose for you Louis. Let her vet 'em and eject 'em until she finds one she is happy with and you will be happy too. It's not advice I would give to my son, but for you, it's the best.  She already gets your bathroom products for you, let her get you a babe too and you won't be disappointed. Sometimes mum's really do know best.

Talk About The Trolls

Hannah Smith should be out enjoying her summer holidays today. Instead she is known globally as the girl who hanged herself after reading horrible stuff online. Now the plan is to name and shame her attackers.
What if they are 15-year-old girls too, terrified of being exposed as the bullies they are? What about the site itself, should that be shut down? What about the trolls who targetted the Facebook page Hannah's grieving family put up, egging each other on  to post the most hateful remarks?
As parents we have to get a handle on this. Some of the trolls say it was this teenager's own fault if she allowed herself to be harmed by remarks made by total strangers. She was vulnerable. Millions are. Even the trolls, I suspect.
We have to convince our kids that the nastiness on the web is a fact of life. Switch off, shut down and talk to your family and friends. This virtual world harms in a very real way. It cuts deep. Not every child is strong enough to block it out. We need to talk to our kids. If this stuff is in their lives then we need to act, now, well before they do.

Only Thickos Have Kids

Clever women, really clever women, don't have kids. Educated out of the breeding programme, they are far too bright to face the drudgery of raising the next generation.
So says The Times this week. It's a common theme. I usually ignore it. Being a mum of three myself, it's a bit like religion or politics. You are never going to convince the other lot, so don't bother.
It's the claim that only thickos and council house chavs breed that got me thinking. How clever is it to leave the survival of the species to them? After all, at brass tacks level we are but a mass of cells with one need - to replicate ourselves.
If the clever ones don't do it where will that leave us? I read that intelligence is passed on the X chromosome. Men, being XY, must get their X from their mothers, with XX. Girls get double bubble.
Women can have kids or not, it's all the same to me. Have the great job, buy the swanky shoes, travel first class and lie in till 3pm. I've done that. Enjoyed it. I've also got three fantastic kids, all clever, including two girls, and if they ever ask me, which they won't, I know which lifestyle I prefer.

Rich But Want More - Have Ours Too

As whiskery Lord Sugar would say: " Wot wuz you finking of !"George Osborne is just the sort of posh prat Sugar berates on The Apprentice. Shame he's also running the country.
This scheme to give two working parents earning  up to £150,000 between them an extra £1,200 is beyond bonkers. It's criminal. Familes on £20,000 with only one earner will not qualify for the child care benefit. So my pal Tracey, wanting to get back into education after having her first child at 18, will get sweet FA, despite her husband Ben working all the hours God sends as a builder.
That's their real names and I take my hat off to them because they don't owe anyone anything, rent their home and can't get a mortgage because they have no credit history. They pay cash. If they haven't got it, they don't spend it.
Contrast that with the £75,000 a year types with their flash cars and expensive properties. They are knee deep in debt, so yes, they are glad to get even more, thankfully from the rest of us. Helps keep little Hugo in his posh Kensington nursery.
This Government talks about helping the strivers but in reality they help themselves. Ordinary people are being chased by the taxman while billionaires pay peanuts. Lost the plot but we can't fire them - yet.

Fight To Keep Kids From Evil Parents

Fancied writing something funny but then little Daniel's suffering came to light and that was that. Plenty of worthy experts have had their say. A children's services' sort said on radio that the number of children dying at the hands of their parents is stable at around  50 to 70 a year. Phew, thank heavens for that, all under control then.

This four-year-old was clearly starving, eating rubbish from bins and with clothes that hung off him. Yet his evil mother convinced professionals that he had a compulsive eating disorder so teachers locked food away from him.
 He was tortured, beaten and regularly drowned to the point of unconciousness. He was covered in bruises and nobody thought to see how his broken arm was caused - or if it healed.

I'm just a mum of three, but this is what I think. Worried teachers should not just pass concerns on. They should keep that child in a place of safety ie school, and refuse to allow him to leave until the police, the social services and a doctor call all confirm, right there and then, that that child is not being harmed at home. One look at him should tell them all they need to know.
Nick Clegg says information is not reaching the right people, facts are falling through the cracks. Not good enough. I would risk a charge of holding a child without the parents' consent if I felt that to let him go home is to sentence him to death. Too many people thought someone else would do something. Time for each of us to act according to our own consciences and risk the wrath of others. Otherwise we leave tiny boys to face that wrath alone.