Who needs Gok, Trinny or Susannah?

I confess, I’m not a Heat magazine reader and only pick up Hello magazine when I’m in the doctor’s surgery, but the British infatuation with celebrity infects us all a little.T
hat’s why I found myself sitting open-mouthed on my settee watching Katie Price on TV having around four sets of cosmetic surgery in as many days in LA.
Her desperate desire? Well, among other slight irritations tainting the body beautiful was the fact that her belly button stuck out a bit – and she hated it! Stoical hubby watched in despair, begging her to make this her last bout of surgery.
“I’ll do what I want,” she snapped. And she did. But I got that Whacko Jacko feeling as I looked at her strangely altering features. Constant surgical tweaking on the super attractive has a negative affect in my humble, plain Jane opinion.
And that’s when I started feeling relieved that I am ordinary. Relieved that I couldn’t give a stuff about my baby belly, flabby thighs, spot on my chin or the fact that the wrinkles are starting to blend into one giant network of cracks and bumps – a bit like the Grand Canyon.
Strangely, I have never scrutinised my belly button and felt waves of nausea at any perceived deformity, though I did find some fluff there once. Heaven help me!
Clearly, I am no glamour model relying on my looks to make a living, but the thought “too much money and time can make you completely barmy” did flash through my mind as I watched Katie positively enjoying yet another anaesthetic.
Years ago, when I went to my GP about having a bit of a lump removed she said: “Think long and hard because there is an element of risk with every operation. If you don’t really need it, if it’s only for cosmetic reasons, my advice would be don’t bother.”
Try telling that to image-obsessed celebrities as they head off for their fifth boob job.
I like to think that if I won the lottery tomorrow I’d stay completely grounded. Though I’d definitely buy a car to make Robbie Savage’s latest motor look dull, I wouldn’t jet off to LA for a Demi Moore-style makeover.
Take me as I am, lardy thighs an’ all. Plus, the fat keeps me warm in the South Stand at Pride Park.
What all women fail to realise until they are old and grey is that, actually, when they were young they looked pretty damn good – even without a scrap of make-up.
In the meantime, women of all ages appear far too ready to expose every inch of their bodies to scrutiny on national TV in the name of yet another makeover show.
Quite why the programme makers find it necessary to get, for example, lots of ladies with fuller figures to bend over in their undies to show us how big their backsides are is quite beyond me. Why women do it leaves me even more baffled. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame but naked bottoms!
I note that there is no male equivalent to this plethora of vanity-based shows. Instead the lads stick to watching the football or rugby. How wise they are. They don’t waste precious hours listening to Gok Wan telling women how to look good naked.
Now, conversely, Gok is presenting Miss Naked Beauty, a programme which gets women back to basics, stripping off the make-up to discover the beauty underneath together with that other vital key to attraction – personality.
The hunt is on for confidence, spirit, sex appeal, brains and beauty. Look no further Gok. You’ll find me in the South Stand at Derby County next Tuesday night, lardy thighs an’ all. Join me there and I’ll give you personality all right. No mascara necessary. In the meantime fellow women, young and old alike, do remember you are all brilliant. And you don’t need Gok, Trinny, Susannah, or even me, to tell you so.

A very merry credit crunch Christmas

Credit crunch and Christmas, both begin with ‘C’ – and the similarity doesn’t end there.
Christmas, a happy time? In fact, it sees a frighteningly high suicide rate, it’s the Samaritans’ busiest time and mountains of marriages hit the rocks come January 1.
Likewise, the credit crunch has seen calls to the Samaritans spiral and it has killed off many a marriage.
Divorce rates in London rocket when the spouses of high-earning city workers see the cash cow in trouble. Quietly breathe the word redundancy and I’ve-only-married-you-for-the-money partners are out of the house, designer bags packed, before they hear the dreaded words “stop spending”.
On the plus side (sort of), the credit crunch is preventing some warring couples from divorcing because they cannot afford to separate.

So much for festive – and credit crunch – cheer. Better, then, that we contemplate the coming season of goodwill like Scrooge – complete with miser gloves, miserable faces and a determination not to waste a penny.
After all, redundancies are 10 a penny, home energy and food bills are rocketing and if you’re not growing your own veg and walking round the house in six jumpers and a bobble hat to save on heating, you’re not playing ball.
Anyone who boasts an inner Scrooge is definitely coming into their own right now.
I feel a wartime, batten-down-the-hatches mentality emerging. What’s wrong with bread and dripping sandwiches anyway? Rationing? Bring it back and we can fight obesity at the same time.
Anyway, it’s not all doom and gloom, some people like the credit crunch. Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary says it’s good for business and reckons his low-cost airline will reap the benefits of the current economic gloom.

“We are not just looking at a recession but a depression,” he said cheerily.
Meanwhile, as our belts are pulled in so tightly we almost crush out vital organs, it’s good to see frugality return.

Aldi and Lidl are awash with new amateur bargain hunters struggling with that crazy race at the tills to shove everything into the trolley at breakneck speed. Help with your packing? Get a grip. View it more like a Krypton Factor challenge.
Other discount retailers are thriving, too. The East Midlands Designer outlet was so packed last Sunday people were parked bumper to bumper on the pavements outside. Not shopping? We’re shopping more, just in different places.
For example, Domino’s pizzas are doing a roaring trade as people are cutting back on eating out but – despite Jamie Oliver’s best efforts – still can’t be bothered to cook. The compromise? Order in a pizza. Not exactly Scrooge-like but it saves a few bob.
In addition, Domino's has been a rise in the sale of potato wedges. In the last recession supermarkets saw sales of rice and potatoes surge, which means we all comfort eat on starch when times are tough.
Meanwhile, meat and organic food sales are down but sales of Tupperware and plastic sarnie bags are up because we’re buttering our own cobs to take to work.
Apart from the starch obsession, that all seems fairly sensible to me but market analysts say that we are not reacting to the credit crunch in a rational way.
Perhaps not but when, day and night, we’re told that the world economy is crashing around our ears, it’s hard not to rush into the kitchen for a giant baked potato served with rice, chips and a Domino’s pizza. The starch overload sends us to sleep and, for a few hours at least, we can stop worrying about the credit crunch.
As for me, a sensible girl when it comes to money, I have to confess that I have changed my buying habits this Christmas. Weirdly, I’ve stockpiled a pile of presents. Strange indeed for someone who normally dashes out to buy gifts at 2pm on Christmas Eve. I have no explanation for this, or my obsession with rice and potatoes.
As for Christmas Day, I’m wondering if Domino’s will be delivering. I can only hope...

Random (Female) Rams fan

I've always wondered why it's always blokes pontificating about football in newspapers, online and at matches so, in an effort to redress the balance, I am starting my own Random (female) Rams Fan blog.
As someone who has been watching Derby County since the age of eight, one of the fist things I'd like to mention is the most irritating comment ever heard at football matches: "We mustn't swear, there's ladies present."
Seeing as every football chant includes every swear word known to man and we're surrounded be people venting their spleen in gay abandon, it's a bit late and, frankly, pretty patronising, to suggest that they should protect our pretty little ears from bad language. Who do you think you are? Darcy?
Secondly, can the man with the squeaky duck mobile ringtone in the South Stand at Pride Park switch it off. Or get something decent.
Finally, can all Rams fans PLEASE give the team a chance to gel before they start turning on the boys? They never built Rome in a day and they're certainly not going to rebuild the Rams in five minutes.
The team were way out of their depth in the Prem and the cash, or will, to keep them up was sadly lacking. At least PJ and Adam Pearson are trying, without breaking the bank, to give us a new young team.
I met Adam recently and was well impressed with what he had to say. As he points out, a £5m player is never going to come to Derby because they want to be with a Prem team. So we have to think out of the box to find hidden or unknown talent.
PJ is clearly doing that. I for one wish him all and the lads all the best for the season.
May Nathan's hat trick be the first of many!

Mad happy campers!

“I lurrrvvve you,” sang out the drunk. “You fill me up...”
There were a few precious moments of silence, followed by a large burp, then he started again, warbling like Simon Cowell’s worst X-Factor nightmare: “Youuu fillllll me up.”
I still haven’t worked out which song he’d wrenched these lyrics from to “serenade” his wife in “Brit-on-hols-drunk style.
She wasn’t impressed. She told him to “shut it” in no uncertain terms but, encouraged by the mobile home decking, which in his drunken stupor he mistook for a stage, he couldn’t stop himself making a complete idiot of himself.
It was then that the thought “never again” imprinted itself on my brain.
Never again would I spend my precious holiday time with a bunch of happy campers on a giant Euro site.
Because, the happier they are, the more miserable they make the people who go about their lives quietly.
You know, the sort who don’t turn up the TV or music full blast just in case their neighbours are in.
The sort who don’t start mowing their lawn at 7am or 9pm.
The sort who pop a note through the door if they have a big party coming up to apologise for any parking inconvenience.
I am among the thoughtful one, which is why I hate noise abuse. That’s what I call it.
Never mind you, Jack, I’m drunk, I’ve paid for this holiday and I’m flamin’ well going to enjoy it by singing like a tuneless moron into the early hours of the morning.
Never mind if you or your kids want to sleep, you’re going to have to listen to me.
Bricks and mortar would struggle to block the sounds, never mind a scrap of canvas or a thin mobile home wall. If you get bad neighbours on a camping/caravan holiday, you’re done for.
A chum admitted the very same thing had happened to her on a campsite in France.
“A load of people next to us were talking and drinking late into the night. It went on and on. Eventually my children were crying because they just couldn’t get to sleep,” she recalled, with a helpless grin.
“So, I went round in my nightie and, very politely, said I was sorry to spoil their fun but could they quieten down. They apologised and said yes but as I walked away the shrieking laughter started again. Then I fell over a hedge.”
Need I say more? Camping has some major drawback. And yet it’s all the rage thanks to the credit crunch.
Brits, from every walk of life, are heading for life under canvas this summer in a massive cost-cutting exercise.
In fact, just by going abroad, I broke the mould because this year the “stay-cation” is de rigueur.
The Benidorm bars are half empty while British campsites are turning people away.
Holidaying in the UK is all very laudable, and surprisingly sensible on our part.
But let’s be logical about this. Every year, millions of us leave gorgeous, lovingly cared for homes and all mod cons to sleep on a mat under canvas in a field. Why?
Alternatively, as in my case, we swap the squishy settees and pillow-soft beds of home for a static van with about as much appeal as a garden shed.
We give up dishwashers in favour of communal dish-washing sinks and leave our en suite bathrooms behind to queue up in our jim-jams for shared showers covered in body hair from the previous occupant.
We eat al fresco, come rain or shine, and feast on blackened barbecued food, served up by the man of the van/tent in some strange male ritual. Man never cooks but must do barbecue to protect cave woman from fire.
It is mystifying. OK, I know I am being a bit harsh here. Some of my best friends are campers – and my father’s the proud owner of a caravan. But I really have had my fill of chemical toilets. And the next drunken karaoke slob to stumble across my path could find himself throttled with my Derby County scarf.
Next year’s UK stay-cation is definitely going to take place within bricks in mortar, preferably in my own home!

Why the Quiet Ones CAN get on in llife

IT was like reading my old school report: “Jill doesn’t talk enough in lessons...Jill doesn’t contribute in class...Jill is a very nice but quiet girl”.
My nine-year-old son’s school report had arrived home and that feeling of deja vu hit home with a vengeance.
Replace my name with his, and it could have been my report from 1975.
I had to laugh, though. This is a lad who, due to his foghorn vocal chords, I am forever telling to pipe down. He never stops talking, rattling away like a machine gun as soon as he wakes up at 6am.
Nevertheless, as I read through his school report, that same old comment, once aimed at me, came home to roost. And I had to ask, for the umpteenth time, what’s wrong with keeping stum? What’s wrong with listening while the gobby ones dominate the show? They talk rubbish most of the time anyway.
As a kid, I hated sticking my hand up to answer a question in class. If you got it wrong, the other kids smirked. If you got it right you were labelled a swot. And, when you did pluck up the courage to put your hand up, the teacher never noticed and let gobby answer it yet again.
To be honest, I’d rather crawl under a stone than have all eyes turned on me.
A few years ago, when I had the opportunity to be hypnotised, I asked to be cured of my fear of public speaking. And I’m not just talking about a major speech in front of hundreds. I crumple if faced with talking in front of no more than half a dozen or so. If asked to speak at the tiniest WI meeting I would be keeling over with nerves and vomiting in the public loos.
I have, and always will be, mouse-like but, as I said to my son last night as he looked glumly at his otherwise good report, when it is truly necessary to open my mouth I can do so – with gritty determination.
Like when I wanted a job, for example. After leaving school, I put university on hold for a year and, by the end of the summer holidays, had managed to land a cub reporter position on a local paper. I made a call, wrote a letter and talked myself into my dream job.
On seeing my byline, my old sixth form tutor rang me up in amazement to ask why I wasn’t at university and how on earth I’d managed to get a job. “The gift of the gab,” I replied. He was stunned. The Quiet One had used the power of speech.
Another place where I make myself heard with great clarity is Pride Park, the home of Derby County. Now there I am stripped of all inhibitions and will yell quite happily until I am blue in the face. It’s therapy, truly. Roll on August 9 when the news season kicks off.
And I never shy away from making a difficult phone call or saying what I think in a tricky situation - especially when faced by forceful, nasty, gobby people.
When I have to talk, I will. But, if there is nothing of major importance to say, why bore people stupid?
At least I don’t suffer from AMOC (Automated Mouth Overload Control), a defect which prevents some individuals from knowing when to stop rattling.
You must know one of these? They just don’t know when to shut up. They chitter-chatter endlessly, killing you softly with their sounds. A one-legged sloth would hare off like a rocket, if they so much as ventured in their direction.
AMOC is particularly prevalent among women, apparently.
Researchers have no idea what produces the defect but, as far as I am aware, it has nothing to do with the inability to speak in front of classmates during your formative years.
So, if like me or my son, you freeze in front of crowds, go suddenly shy and look at your shoes, never fear. All is not lost. The best people know when to shut up.

The RIGHT Apprentice!

So wacky pterodactyl impersonator Lee McQueen won The Apprentice. What a huge relief.
Common sense triumphed over the intensely clever stupidity so often displayed by people who are super bright but, somehow, don’t live in the real world.
Hard work and effort triumphed over a fistful of academic qualifications.
It makes the heart sing, because after Lee’s CV rumpus, I thought he was out for the count.
For those not addicted to one of the most gripping TV shows of the year, Lee told a fib on his CV. I say fib because lie seems too harsh. He said he’d spent two years at college when in fact he dropped out after four months.
It was a fib born out of embarrassment. Lee thought he wouldn’t stand a chance without a list of academic qualifications as long as his arm. So, he reinvented himself, ever so slightly, like countless others before him.
He could have done far worse, like claiming he was an Oxbridge grad.
I don’t condone what he did but I do understand why. So did Sir Alan.
What Lee failed to realise was that if anyone was not going to judge him on academic results alone, it was the multi-millionaire tycoon.
Like so many of Britain’s top entrepreneurs, he came from a humble background and left school at 16. The hard work started there – not five or more years later after partying on down at uni for three years,
Sir Alan saw beyond that CV slip-up and recognised that in Lee a bright, loyal grafter with passion, enthusiasm and good humour was waiting to be moulded.
Nevertheless the holier-than-thou brigade have been casting their eyes heavenwards at Lee’s CV faux pas.
But, it’s not as bad as stealing from your employers, surely? Shirking on the job? Having more academic qualification than you know what to do with but being utterly hopeless?
In fact, while I’m motoring on this theme, Derby City Council’s corruption allegations spring to mind.
Is lying on your CV as bad as using your employees’ materials and joinery shop to build stuff for private homes?
Telling a white lie on your CV can hardly rank alongside theft, misuse of company property or just being a complete waste of space in the workplace.
After more than 20 years in half a dozen different jobs, I’ve pretty much seen it all. Graduates who, like Lee, struggle to spell; shirkers who got away with doing as little as possible, a couple of alcoholics and a thief – not at the Evening Telegraph I hasten to add.
Talking of shirkers, my favourite was the woman who insisted on having her hair cut in works’ time – because it grew in works’ time.

For all of these reasons and because like Sir Alan Sugar, I am crusty, old and wise, I am chuffed to bits for Lee.
He displayed more energy and enthusiasm than the rest of the apprentices put together and was that rare thing – a good team player but also a great leader.
He’s also good fun, a vastly underrated strength in the workplace. Who wants to be surrounded by an army of high maintenance whiners?
Attitude and hard work count for everything in my humble opinion. And if you smile along the way, hallelujah!
Yes, you need to be bright but degrees don’t guarantee that, especially these days as youngsters are pushed into higher education whether it suits them or not, because so few jobs are available.
And why on earth don’t we value practical intelligence, a much rarer commodity than a degree?
It was Lee who led The Apprentice team who located the Jewish quarter in Marrakech to buy a kosher chicken during a bizarre task for Sir Alan – unlike a lad with a degree from Edinburgh who went to the halal butcher.

Lee, if you don’t like it at the Sugar empire, you’re hired.

The joy of being a frugalista (tight!)

Careful with your money? Harshly dubbed tight? Not any more, you’re a funky new frugalista.
You’re so stylish, Madonna would kill for just a fraction of your money know-how.
I bet she wishes she had a Home Bargains store close by, stuffed with cut-price toiletries and packs of 18 toilet rolls – yes, I said 18 – for an astonishing £2.99.
Yep, the credit crunch is biting hard. Thanks to the mighty media’s scare stories about rocketing gas and electric bills, plummeting home values and rising fuel and food costs, we’re all cutting back.
Phew! What a relief. I no longer feel guilty for being a frugalista (OK, tight), something I have been all my life.
It all started in 1972 when, clutching my 10p pocket money tightly, I walked to the sweet shop and thought long and hard for half an hour before buying a bag of chocolate tools for 1p each. Mmm... those hammers and spanners tasted good. Whatever happened to chocolate tools?Though just a tubby tot, I knew then that money definitely didn’t grow on trees. I had to make every penny count. When I bought my first house at 21 for £13,000 I felt like I’d borrowed a million. The mortgage seemed huge and it was compared to my measly salary.
My first job paid £40 a week.
Despite the cash shortfall I managed to run a car, though its rickety doors flew open when I rounded a bend, and I never, ever got into debt.
As a student I used thrift shops. I made Amy Whinehouse look like the epitome of chic. As long as I averted my gaze when I passed a mirror, it really didn’t bother me.
As I grew older and started to earn more money, cash pressures eased but that frugal nature never went away.
I’d never go out and blow £300 on a handbag, my mobile phone’s like Del Boy’s brick and I drive a battered Peugeot 106 that rattles when I round a bend. At least the doors don’t fly open!Friends have goaded me over the years, especially a couple who I dub “the princesses”.
One refuses point blank to shop anywhere where they don’t pack your groceries for you. One almost passed out in horror a few years ago when I dragged her into Kwik Save. It was as much as she could do not to vomit.
When we get together they show off their designer buys, Burberry is a favourite make. In fact, I fell off my bar stool when one revealed the purse she’d just bought – for £295.
More money than sense is the phrase that springs to mind as I quickly decide in my head what I would have bought for the same amount of money – a new bathroom suite maybe, or flights for a holiday.
But now, despite their laughter at my expense, their hoots of derision when I confess that my new dress cost a fiver in New Look’s sale, I am in tune with current thinking and they are so 1980s, so bling.
Even the London luvvies are having lessons in how to save cash. I saw one on telly this week being introduced to the delights of Aldi.
Shopping around, she discovered – surprise, surprise – could save hundreds of pounds a year on her groceries. It was a total revelation to her. “Their bacon is incredibly cheap,” she gasped in awe.
It is indeed. Come to Derby, love, and you’ll really bag a bargain. Where have these people been? Bathing in vats of £50 notes?
Now, suddenly, they are realising how incredibly stupid they are. As a fellow frugalista said: “ I hear people whining about being poor and in debt while feeling like they’re too good to lower themselves to ‘that level’ of hard-core frugality. Screw that. Party like it’s 1959 – or 1929 if you’re really on a tight budget. Live on a smaller income, think like our grandparents and great-grandparents. I'd rather clip money-off coupons than be an indentured servant to Mastercard for the rest of my life.”
Me too. Frugal and proud – and oh so fashionable! This credit crunch thing isn’t so bad after all.