Como vc se vê?

Como vc se vê? O que vc mais gosta e o que mais odeia? O The Observer fez esta pergunta para alguns escritores convidados e o resultado está aí... vale a pena! Ah! Vocês estão convidados e postar o que pensam de vocês também. Beijos, m.

How do I look?What do you hate - or love - most about your body? Teeth, hair, wrinkles,breasts ... We asked a host of writers about the part that best defines them -their saving grace or the one thing that has them fleeing from the mirrorReadpart two of this article

Sunday June 10 2007

The Observer

Jeremy Langmead on fat bottoms Editor of British Esquire magazineDue to a childhood spent in Oslo, I was a prolific reader - have you everwatched TVNorge? Yet, despite devouring everything from Dickens to Dostoevsky bythe age of 11, there is one literary passage that has always stuck in my mind.Sadly, it isn't a piece of crisp prose by Greene or Capote, but a couple ofparagraphs from James Herbert's The Fog. A man is walking innocently along astreet when he is momentarily engulfed by a mind-bending mist. The firstmanifestation of his madness is to become obsessed with brutally kicking the fatbottom of the man obliviously walking in front of him.Perhaps it was reading The Fog that bred within me an innate fear of the fatmale arse. And particularly of ever owning one myself. But I don't think I am ina minority. There is no doubt that the big butt, whether in comic movies, lamesitcoms or horror fiction, has always been viewed as an object of derision. EvenHG Wells in The History of Mr Polly describes how the world-weary merchant isdrawn to violence by the frequent sight of his neighbour Mr Rumbold's largebehind. Polly cruelly describes the offending object as an 'uncivil breadth ofexpressionless humanity'.I suppose a big arse is an easy target, so to speak. But a fat bottom has longbeen regarded as a sign of greed, sloth and middle management. When a bigmanbottom wibble-wobbles into view it doesn't immediately conjure up images ofvitality, agility and burning ambition. There is also something oddly effeminateabout a man with a rotund behind. It looks too voluptuous and Rubensesque to betruly masculine. Men should surely look hard, not soft, to the touch.I have two male friends with protruding posteriors. One of them is ashamed ofhis and regrets the limitations it imposes on his life: baggy jeans are anecessity, Philippe Starck see-through chairs a no-no and Dior Homme animpossible dream. The other is strangely proud. He says girls like his big,round arse and that he always gets it pinched in nightclubs. But even he has todress with caution: corduroys don't work (they add unwanted padding), andneither do snug-fitting red jeans (these give him the appearance of a friskybaboon).To avoid a fat-bottomed fate, I exercise regularly at a gym. When I first signedup with my trainer he asked why I wanted to work out. To be fit and healthy, Isaid. Bollocks, you just want to look good naked, he responded. But it is morethan that. I don't want people to start kicking my bottom when I'm walking alongthe street. After all, London is a foggy city populated with numerousdisgruntled shopkeepers.So it's squats, lunges and step machines for me; maintaining a mid-size behindis a lifelong commitment. So far, the hard work appears to have paid off. Thelarge mirror in my bathroom, in which I frequently check my rear, does notinduce gasps of horror when the steam clears after a shower.But, when I'm a little older and a little less single, perhaps I'll relax andexpand. When that happens I'll seek comfort in the words of Marlon Brando. Whenquestioned about his excessive weight, the actor replied: 'I don't mind that I'mfat. You still get the same money.'Liz Jones on her breasts Columnist and author of Liz Jones's DiaryI can recollect, quite precisely, when my weird relationship with my breastsstarted. It was in high school, when I was surrounded by girls who from the ageof 11 started to grow breasts exponentially, and quite proud of them they were,too. I would see their breasts jiggling around during netball, or naked in theshower after hockey. They would wear bras, and talk about bras, and shop forbras, conversations and expeditions that terrified and embarrassed me. I foundbig breasts revolting as well as terrifying: pendulous, covered in blue veins. Iwas scared of everything in those days - talking to boys, swimming lessons whereothers might glimpse my body or I might drown - and so I thought, it will be fareasier to opt out. I starved myself, and so of course I didn't grow breasts; myadolescence consisted of precisely one period, when I was about 19. I never worea bra, preferring liberty bodices. I felt pure and clean, mainly because boysdidn't want to snog me in the smokin g section of the Chelmsford Odeon. They only wanted girls with breasts, whichwas fine because I preferred books and ponies.I was quite happy being breastless and hipless and boyless, but then Iunfortunately got caught up in the National Health Service system, and once youare in, it is very hard to get out. I was in my early twenties, working on aglossy magazine in London, and the starvation thing had got a bit out of hand.At a particularly arduous ballet class one Saturday morning (I did four hours ofclasses on Saturday, seven hours during the week), I caught sight of myemaciated frame in its pink tights in the mirror and knew I needed help, which Igot (eating-disorder clinics, steroids, peanut-butter sandwiches), but no onetold me that one of the side effects was that I would grow breasts. Oh God how Ihated them. They meant I couldn't run properly each evening, they meant menlooked at me, they meant clothes (Azzedine Alaïa bodies, Katharine Hamnettstretchy dresses) looked obscene. I started to hide my breasts (bear in mindthat up to, and way beyond this point, no man had ever to uched them or seen them); I never wore a proper bra with wires and cups (horridword), but I would try to bind them, putting great big Joseph Tricot chunkyhandknits on top, so that I had a shapeless monobreast. They looked especiallymilch-cow-like because the rest of me was so emaciated (Jordan was not, at thispoint, in fashion), and no matter how much I starved myself (endocrinologistsare so easy to fool) my bosoms refused to budge.But then one day, on the bus, I had a revelation. I was reading the very firstissue of British Elle magazine (the gloriously flat-chested Yasmin not-yet-LeBon was on the cover), in which there was a feature that seemed to answer myprayers. It was about the fact that women in Paris were getting breastreductions to achieve that boyish, gamine, high-fashion look, and I thought, ofcourse! Why didn't I think of this? And so, at the age of 29, I had my breastsremoved, and fashioned into two spherical perfect rounds the size of squeezingoranges, not navel oranges (too large). I remember coming round from theanaesthetic, and the plastic surgeon saying, 'The operation went really well,but remember, your nipples might not take; they might go black and die'. Hehadn't told me that before he put me under, but still, they managed to take,like orchid cuttings.I can't feel anything in my breasts, and I will never be able to breast-feed (abit of a moot point, given my two-decade-long sabbatical from men due to mybreast phobia), and the scars mean I have never felt liberated by myflatchestedness; I have never been able to sunbathe topless, for example, orwear Versace gowns slashed to the waist, but how often do those situationsarise? When I was finally, fleetingly married, my poor husband never got to seeor touch my breasts; he became used each night to being confronted by a verythick Gap T-shirt. I guess what my distorted, lifelong obsession meant is that Iam scared of life, of being normal, of having a relationship and being lookedat. Now that I am on my own again I can go back to not being a woman any more. Iam alone, I no longer have to play netball or hockey. I no longer have to beseen naked. It's fine, really.Will Self on his feet Award-winning novelistOh, my feet! What pathos you inspire in me; more, I think, than any other partof my body. You are so far away from me - and so neglected; like children whohave been evacuated from the body politic.Being over 6ft high, my life has been one in which, for the first 17-odd years,my feet were exiled. And I was glad of this - because I found them to beincreasingly monstrous. In those far off days, there were remarkably fewteenagers with size 12s, and I had to go to a gloomy, specialist shop, where Icould only buy gloomy, specialist shoes - when all I lusted after wereflagrantly unsuitable winkle-pickers.My grandfather, a big-footed eccentric, invested in scores of pairs of leathershoes, convinced - through some Lamarckian delusion - that his descendants wouldbe still more grossly equipped than him. Obviously I couldn't wear them. So Itortured the poor things, cramming them into tiny, pointy shoes, abrading them,abusing them.I couldn't even wear training shoes - my feet flattened in them, spreading intostill greater extent. I hated them. I only visited them every fortnight or so,to cut their nails. I had - and still have - no idea whether they're ugly orbeautiful, size was all that mattered to me. When people would say, 'My, butyou've got big feet', I'd snap back: 'They have to be, otherwise I'd fall overin the wind.'Then, bliss: the world caught up with me, and in my twenties I found I could buybog-ordinary shoes. Did I reacquaint myself with my plates of meat? Did I fuck,I left them well alone, as long as they did their job of taking steps, reasoningthat if I ignored them they'd go away - with me on top them.Then, in Vienna, in 1998, I awoke from a binge to discover that I'd failed toremove my boots the night before. In the gungy sweat I could feel somethingpainful and gritty. It was a savage Germanic fungal infection that thenproceeded to infest the swine for the next eight years. Eight years of frayingwebbing, eight years of toenails dropping off, eight years of smearing onunguents and puffing on powders.You might've thought that such exigencies would've driven me to rethink my footaversion - not a bit of it. I kept them at leg's length. It wasn't until thefungus began to spread over the rest of my body that I took drastic action, andgoing to my GP was prescribed 'pulse' medication, that finally did for theskin-feeding mushrooms.And so I continue to neglect my feet - even though, as someone who loves walkingpassionately, I need them. So it is, that as I write this, I have a callous onthe side of my right big toe the size of Liechtenstein. I do own a corn knife,and there is a certain joy to be had in whittling away at the hardened skin,producing shavings of me. But why bother it? After all, it's not bothering me,and what am I going to do if I reduce those Brobdingnagian plates of meat, cramthem into Jimmy Choos? I think not.Lionel Shriver on her legs Orange prize-winning authorCuriously, my legs are the part of my body with which I am most prone toidentify, yet which I am also most prone to objectify. If they are me, the bestof me, they are also my responsibility. They are innocent, a gift. I am theirprotector, as we are all our own protectors - both owner and possessor,custodian and ward.It would be safer to write about some part of my body of which I feel ashamed,some lesser bit of meat to throw to the lions, a sacrifice for our mutual sport.I could mock my teeth, which stain so badly after a single cup of coffee thatthey might have been unearthed from an archaeological dig (self-deprecation issuch a sure route to endearment in this country that when anyone plays thatmanipulatively humble card, you shouldn't trust it). But I will be brave. Mylegs are lovely.And not because I'm athletic. The most fetching parts of our bodies came thatway in the box. I am merely fortunate. The sculptural rhythm to these narrowankles, full calves, and slender knees is not of my making. (Since thefundamental shapes of all our bodies are neither to our credit nor our fault,it's peculiar that we ever conflate our looks and our selves.) After all, whensomeone else is generous and tasteful enough to give you well-proportioned wineglasses for Christmas, the appropriate response is gratitude, not arrogance. Sofor me to submit that I was blessed with fine stemware is not a boast. All thatfalls within my power is to ruin them - to drop the glasses on the floor.As their guardian and master, I put them through their paces. I take themrunning a nine-mile course every other day along the Thames. I hook them intothe pedals of my bicycle and send them churning off to Hammersmith, when mypublisher would have been more than happy to send a car. I set them bouncingcomically through 3,000 jumping jacks in front of the Channel 4 News. They do asthey're told. They rarely complain. They know that I have their best interestsat heart.I live in constant terror that something will happen to them - that Master'sbriefest inattention in the vicinity of a bendy bus will destroy at a strokethese faithful servants that have for decades spun me up the Alps, jogged mealongside the Mediterranean, and whisked me down airport hallways just in timeto catch the plane. I sometimes have flash, nightmare visions of these thighs,pallid and melting in a wheelchair, or cut off just below the pelvis and reducedto stumps. Foolishness of course, but I've prayed after close-calls on my bikethat if I have to have a serious cycling accident, please let it be fatal. Eventyping 'cycling accident' makes me superstitious, and I'm tempted to delete.My aim occasionally to do justice to these sturdy twins explains my seeminglyuncharacteristic fondness for high heels. A girly predilection for me, but yes,the higher the better. Stilettos curl that delectable accenting comma under thecalf, tense the front thigh, and realign the pelvis. You never get that effectflat-footed, as any woman knows.Sure, my legs will fall apart - plump, crenulate, and dimple. But they will fallapart over my dead body - or attached to it. Indeed, that's the other vision. Idid have that bike accident. I'm on a slab. A morgue orderly takes a sly peek ashe pulls up the sheet. 'Pity!' he mumbles. 'Nice legs.' As an epitaph,mercifully short, and not half-bad.· We Need to Talk about Kevin is published by Serpent's Tail. LionelShriver's new novel, The Post-Birthday World, is published by HarperCollins thismonthAlex James on his hair Farmer and former bass player with BlurIt's fair to say that my hair has been my fortune. Playing in a rock-and-rollband has more to do with parading the right rug than having perfect pitch. Ijoined a band around the time I got my first good haircut, before I'd learnt howto play the bass. In the Eighties, a hairstyle was a big commitment. It was likeliving underneath a stately home. There were constant renovations andmaintenance to consider: gel, hairspray, mousse, egg whites, highlights, andthat was just the boys.As the era of upwards hair drew to a close, it became fashionable to go toold-fashioned barbers. Then when I moved to London, I was penniless and mygirlfriend became my stylist. The clipped neatness of the barbershop gave way toa rustic thatch, the squat chop. It is a hard thing to get hair exactly rightand you can never be certain quite how much a restyle might improve one's life -I was most satisfied when my girlfriend was doing it.However, my hair underwent a sudden change of fortune: it went straight frombeing hacked around with paper scissors to being nursed and dressed by highlypaid stylists on photo shoots. There was no going back then, and I had to takeit to Mayfair every time it needed a service.Hair epiphanies have to be seized upon and implemented immediately. I'mparticularly pleased with my latest incarnation - 'the centenary Auden'. I tooka book of his poems with his picture on the front to the salon and said, 'Makeme a poet'. It seems to have worked, too. I was asked to write a poem last week,and that's never happened before. It's magic stuff, this hair.I never wash it and I haven't owned a comb or brush since I left home. In fact,throughout my life my hair has been almost entirely managed by other people:mother, girlfriends and stylists. I suppose it's the Madonna approach - getpeople who are better than you to worry about the things that you don'tunderstand so that you can get on with doing what you're good at.Down the other end, my toenails are starting to frighten me, but hair is unique,perhaps throughout the entire animal kingdom. It has the ability to metamorphoseat any time. The crusty old caterpillar can turn into a beautiful butterfly.Hair is a source of eternal hope.Augusten Burroughs on teethBestselling author of Running With ScissorsI made it through the first seven years of my life without ever realising thatwomen used their teeth just exactly like men and dogs. Teeth were just a flashof white behind the shaped, fragrant red lips. The toothpaste my mother used wascalled Pearl Drops, and that's how I saw her teeth - as pretty pearls she storedin her mouth. Something valuable and rare with no practical purpose exceptperhaps to reflect light back on to the painted lips and make them gleamfurther.My mother had been raised in the southern United States by her Latin-instructormother, an old woman at 29. My mother spent her adolescence in white gloves,nylons, layers of concealer, make-up, finishing powder on her face.It wasn't simply that I never saw my mother use her teeth, it was rather thatshe never consumed anything that required them. My mother preferred soft foods -creamy bananas, a certain boiled-wheat cereal, jam, tomatoes. My mother alwayschewed with her mouth closed. The food was brought to her lips on the spoon andthe spoon gently pierced the bow and slipped in, then out, just as fast,glistening, spotless.I have thought about the party now for over 30 years. In some ways, I stillcarry the shock of the revelation with me. Because my father was a professor atthe university, most of my parents' friends were fellow academics. It was at aparty held by an English professor and his wife. I remember almost nothing ofthe party, least of all why I, as a seven-year-old child, had been invited inthe first place.What I do recall is that there was a meal. The wife of the English professor satat a crowded dinner table and I was seated directly across from her. There musthave been wine and conversation. There must have been music.Probably, somebody had Joni Mitchell on the record player, or maybe Simon andGarfunkel. That's what you played in 1972. There would have been cork coastersfor the wine glasses. A teak salad bowl. Ashtrays on the dinner table. Andbecause these were Amherst College professors, it's likely the furniture wasDanish Modern. But I remember none of it. I only remember Nancy Bickering, mymother's friend and the wife of the English professor, opening her mouth aroundthe roasted thigh of a chicken, peeling her lips back, possibly to protect herlipstick, and then biting into the flesh of the bird and, with her teeth,ripping free the meat.I remember that she chewed. I remember seeing her lips on the rim of a wineglass, I remember her throat tighten to accept the liquid. And then the flash ofher teeth again, as she went back to the bird for more of its meat. Her teeth,so white and sharp and useful, a true tool, both tore the flesh from the boneand then clipped it into a manageable size.At no point did she have meat hanging from her mouth. She was accomplished inthe use of her teeth. I was mesmerised. I had never seen anything even remotelylike this display.My mother was the only lady I knew and I couldn't imagine such a brazen displayof teeth at the table, such a flashing of primal skill. I stared in awe,ignoring all the food on my plate, as at last the bone of the bird's leg wasrevealed, pink and glistening.At last she turned to me and shrieked, 'Stop staring at me. Stop watching meeat.'I'd felt invisible until this moment and free to watch her as I watched thetelevision at home. I was just as shocked and horrified as if my own televisionhad scolded me and told me to turn away from it.Only now do I see that I'd made her feel self-conscious. I'd probably made herfeel fat. But I was only watching in wonder, as I'd never before seen a womanwith an appetite and the ability to satisfy it so thoroughly.· Burroughs' latest book, Possible Side Effects, is published by StMartin's PressKeith Allen on his eyes Actor, documentary make, bon viveurMost people in Britain have seen my arse. I don't mind. I'm happy with my body,but haven't always been. I had a very small body until I was 17. I was only 5ftlong, then I grew seven inches in a year. I was hairless, and now I'm covered inthe stuff. I have an incredibly long back, too, and very short legs. I'm nakedon telly again in the next series [of Robin Hood] as the Sheriff of Nottingham.And I don't 'tone up' at the gym. I went once to get my son to lose a bit ofweight, but me and the gym are not friends. You have to be careful with how youdress when you're my shape - you can look like a pumped-up dwarf if you're notcareful.My favourite bit of my body? My magnificent cock perhaps? My partner likes mynipples. But my favourite bit of my body is my eyes. They're the windows into mysoul. They're responsible for all my conquests. They're multi-coloured - greenand brown, and blue and grey. They make women melt. But I've only been able tosee out of one of them since I was about five. I can't do shapes or details. Ifyou gave me a pair of 3D glasses I'd only be able to see green. Which makes mewonder if I'm seeing anything correctly at all. They tried to sort it out when Iwas a kid, but all they did was twist the eye downwards. I had to wear a patchover my National Health specs when I was a kid. Did I get bullied? Did I fuck -my razor-like wit came into play. If I glance in the mirror then I feelterrible, because I look like Bill Oddie. But if I stare long enough then I findbeauty there somewhere.· Keith Allen's autobiography, Grow Up, is out nowMark Ravenhill on his fat back Author and leading contemporary playwrightWhen I tested positive for HIV in 1990, I was 24. My relationship to my bodychanged instantly. Suddenly my body was alien to me. It had been invaded, andsomething inside it was ticking away, ready to weaken me until a host ofinfections could move in for the kill. I had five years; 10 years if I was verylucky.I decided to push the whole thing right to the back of my mind. I told threefriends and nobody else. I carried on with life and crossed my fingers, hopingfor a wonder drug.So I was relieved and excited in 1995 when I read in my newspaper that the newdrugs were on their way. HIV was close to becoming a chronic but manageablecondition, much like diabetes.I started on the new drugs in 1997, just in the nick of time. My immune systemhad reached a very low level. My skin was starting to show the first purplepatches of the cancerous Kaposi's sarcoma. My brain had been invaded by aninfection called toxoplasmosis. I started to experience epileptic fits.I had one hellish summer as my body learned to tolerate the powerful newmedication and the toxoplasmosis in my brain was treated. But eventually,everything began to calm down. I fell into the routine - easy enough to adhereto - of taking handfuls of pills several times a day.But these are powerful drugs and there are bound to be side effects. Over theyears I've suffered lethargy and insomnia, panic attacks and nightmares,constipation and diarrhoea. But the worst of these - although of course nothingcompared to Aids - is something called lipodystrophy.For reasons that no one can still quite explain, the body distributes fat in anunusual way. The arms, legs and bum lose fat. Tummys get much bigger - on manypeople far bigger than the worst middle-aged pot belly.A couple of years ago, I looked in the mirror and realised that my body hadgradually crept into this state. While my waist was still pretty average, I hadunnatural deposits of fat on my back - forming a sort of a hump. And my neck hadbecome incredibly large, with great rolls of fat. To the casual observer, justlooking at my head, I was a fat person - even though the body below was a fairlynormal weight.I became increasingly self-conscious about my body. I lost all interest inclothes, something I'd always enjoyed before. I was the elephant man, I wasphantom of the opera. What was the point of taking care of this ugly shell?Researching on the internet, I found out that the fat could be removed byliposuction. There was a trial funded by the NHS. A driven person, I fought toget on it. The plastic surgeon agreed that my large neck was a priority and lastsummer I had the plastic surgery - a small incision under my chin through whichthe fat was sucked.Since then, my neck is back to normal and I feel like a person again. I'vejoined a fitness programme for HIV-positive men and women. I've started toexperiment with some new clothes.My back is still an unnatural shape. I try not to catch it in the mirror. If Ido, I become depressed and upset. In time, I'd like to have surgery for thattoo. I may have to find the money for that myself.Gradually, I'm coming to terms with my body. Maybe if you're HIV-positive, youcan never entirely trust your body. But some days, I get close.Ariel Levy on her kneesAuthor of Female Chauvinist PigsIt's difficult to convey to you just how mangled my knees are. They are both soscarred they look as if they are done in a different fabric from the rest of mybody - some kind of leopard print, perhaps. I have always been clumsy, andskinned knees seem to be a permanent aspect of my physicality. The oldest scarsare on my left knee, records of a childhood fall at a swimming pool that tookmonths to heal. I still remember those massive scabs, which my mother begged menot to pick. ('You'll regret it when you're grown up and your legs lookstained!' True enough.)The marks from my twenties tend to be imprints of intoxication. One particularlylarge and dark one comes from a night I fell drunkenly out of a taxi in pursuitof a similarly inebriated friend who'd made a break for it at a red light. Shemade a clean getaway; I had to pay for the cab and wear Band-Aids for a month.My life lately is considerably calmer than those gimlet nights of my youth, butit is no easier on my knees. The most recent and dramatic scars I have come fromthe endless hours I spend on my knees in the garden, where I will, from time totime, find myself kneeling with all my weight on a shard of pottery or glass oran old nail. Horticulture, as I practise it, is a blood sport.It's not easy being my knees. Somehow, they always seem to bear the brunt of mylifestyle, whether because of gin or geraniums. Years ago, I went to adermatologist on Park Avenue who sold me an expensive cream and did some sort ofpainful thing with lasers, both aimed at fading my scars, but it was a sillywaste of time and money: his treatments were no match for my markings, and I hada new batch of scrapes in no time anyway. My knees are proof that I ampassionate or reckless, depending on your point of view. When I drink, I drinktoo much; when I garden, I stay at it until I'm physically unable to continue.Of course, my mother was right: I look very silly in skirts, with my spottedknees just under the hem. They clash with everything. But they are a map of mylife, of my accidents and adventures, and I can think of worse accessories.· Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture is publishedby Simon & SchusterKathryn Flett on her tummy The Observer's television criticI've lost two stones in 12 weeks on a diet not endorsed by any doctor,dietician, scary TV food guru or indeed anybody with half a brain. It amounts toa combination of stress, not eating very much and smoking like a volcano.Happily, Observer Woman readers are far too clever to follow such a patentlyidiotic prescription for rapid weight loss.Whatever! This week I am prancing around reacquainting myself with my cheekbonesand jaw line while wearing ballet pumps with skinny jeans. Actually they're justslightly tight straight jeans - genuine skinny jeans being a fashion crime toofar, given that my short legs and Wayne Rooney knees remain recognisably asrubbish as ever, despite their reduced proportions.But this is not about legs, this is about my alleged 'waistline'... or lackthereof. I've lost weight, ergo I should be slimmer - I am slimmer - but there'sstill something weird going on in the middle of me. Obviously there are allsorts of internal psychological weirdnesses, which you will be glad to bespared, and then I can often hear the internal rumblings of a sad stomach crying'carbs carbs, wherefore art thou...?', but the fact remains that there are somethings mere starvation alone cannot reduce. Here then, for those of amathematical bent, is the relevant equation:43yrs + 2 kids = Aaaaargh! (squared).I do try and focus on the positives: I've got nice eyes and very little(amazingly) in the way of cellulite. Especially around my eyes. I don't activelyhate my arse (it's easy enough to avoid), can scrub up well enough in naturaldaylight, and may even glow, pleasantly and peri-menopausally after dark, thanksto a combination of Touche Eclat and candlelight... In short there's plenty towork with on a good day - just a whole lot more on a bad one. But this stomachthing is driving me bonkers.'Exercise!' say those for whom the word falls, entirely logically, betweenExercent and Exercitant in their internal Shorter Oxford, as opposed to betweenDemented and Foolish, as it does in mine.So I don't do exercise, I smoke, I don't eat properly, I live on oxygen infusedwith stress particles... and I'm worrying about the size of my stomach? Is thereno end to the vanity of woman? Well no, actually, because while the stress willabate, the smoking can be stopped (I've done it loads of times) and I am liableat any time to wean myself off the snack-of-the-moment, Whitworths wasabi beanmix, and back on to enormo-bags of Revels, only the application of scalpels andsuction-pumps can sort out the stomach.I'm addicted to Channel 4's How To Look Good Naked, in which, every week, I amawed by the sight of women standing around in their bra and knickers beinghugged by presenter Gok Wan - a man who habitually refers to breasts as'bangers' and tells women they're gorgeous when (sorry sisters) they reallyaren't.As if this weren't bad enough, he then makes them get what little remains oftheir kit off for a soft-focus nudie shoot (for their shadowy husbands) and thenmakes (sorry: 'encourages') them to take to the catwalk in front of an audience- which always seems to include their mum, kids and best mate, but never theshadowy husband - in no more than a slightly better bra and knickers than theones in which they arrived.And every week I think, 'Well, at least I look better than that!' But who am Ikidding? I am walking around carrying what appears to be a prosthetic stomachdesigned by the Chapman brothers for a cruel and unnecessary sketch showentitled Little Britain In Hell.This appendage - texture of three broadsheet Sunday newspapers' worth ofpapier-mâché wrapped in a crepe bandage; colour of putty - isn'tme, it doesn't belong and I don't know where to put it. Skinny jeansmanufacturers urgently need to apply some midriffery skills alongside theirdesign process, but until they do I'm brushing up on my maths:Smock + Spanx pants = Svelte (ish). And so what if I never have sex again in myentire life?