I'll declare my own interest right here at the start and admit that, like the vast majority of people, I find youthful looks appealing.

It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it's not, it's a visa, and it runs out fast.

Fame is no sanctuary from the passing of youth... suicide is much easier and more acceptable in Hollywood than growing old gracefully.

These women whose antics we smirk at good-naturedly in the pap-traps put themselves out there at least partly on their beauty; they are in showbiz, and showing what they've got is part of their business as much as it is for male show-ponies from the Chippendales to George Clooney.

The terrorist attacks were a tragedy for the people who died or were injured, and for their families and friends. For the rest of us, they were a wake-up call as to what type of lunatics we are dealing with. And sleepwalking our way back into ill-sorted, dewy-eyed people personal politics is the last thing we need to set us up for the fight ahead. Come on you liberals, don't give me the morbid pleasure of saying, 'I told you so' again.

When did women whose looks are not their living start conducting themselves like the simpering inmates of an Ottoman empire seraglio?

Only those who haven't got the wit to speak for themselves would ever want their clothes to do it for them.