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Opticals, Darling

  Do you want to know what the hottest accessory for summer 2026 is?  (Yes please, I really want to know.) If the group of fashion editors I was travelling with last week are anything to go by, it's what are known in the industry as opticals, or glasses to you and me. (Glasses are a bit common - opticals is a much, much better word.) Still Life with an open Book and Spectacles William T. Howell Allchin (1844-1883) Photo Credit: Ashmolean Museum Oxford [CC BY-NC-ND]  They were sporting them almost to a woman, ubiquitously outsize, some a variation on the theme of aviators, either the classic metal frames or tortoiseshell, others a chunky squared-off style, like an NHS pair of yore that had been subject to the, um, Engorgement Charm in Harry Potter. (How delightful. Pilot opticals in many different styles. Fabulous.) Those women were mostly a lot younger than me. I couldn't quite pluck up the courage to ask how many actually needed glasses and how many were wearing them bec...
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The Mind's Power to Heal and Harm

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  For the past few years, I've been writing a book, This Book May Cause Side Effects , about how our thoughts influence ill health. You may have heard of the placebo effect, when positive expectations lead to positive health outcomes. But my interest is in its evil twin. The nocebo effect occurs when dismal expectations lead to negative health outcomes. The phenomenon can create, exacerbate and prolong symptoms. When these symptoms coalesce, people become ill - not from disease, but from the intimate relationship that exists between mind and body. Sometimes, all it takes to make someone feel genuinely unwell is a few carefully chosen words.   The Doctor Luke Fildes (1843-1927) Photo Credit:Tate Britain [CC BY-NC-ND]  You don't just have to take my word for it. There is a plethora of peer-reviewed studies confirming this idea. In one, patients fresh from minor keyhole surgery received a harmless saline infusion that they were told would temporarily increase their pain. It ...
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Presidential Address (2)

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  Make America Great Again Ashley Rawson Photo Credit: Gordon Baird  I'm shouting at you tonight so you can hear me over the cheers for the All-Florida Ultimate Cage Fighting Championships being held next door in the Carmen Miranda Chica Chica Boom Ballroom. Beautiful, beautiful ballroom. Come visit! All the surf 'n'turf you can eat Thursdays. And MORE good news. There's a ceasefire. Which means you have to stop firing. Unless you don't want to, like my pal Bibi, who's enjoying a PEACEFIRE! Firing for PEACE. But me, I'm done with firing. I fired Kirsti Noem. I fired Pam Bondi. One by one they're all disappearing off the hit list. Who's next? JD Vance after the peace talks. Maybe the Iranians don't like bearded fanatics!? So maybe the firing will start once again. Who knows? Not me! Or maybe I do. 'Cos the Iranian people, they love me bombing. They miss my bombing. They want it SO BAD! Fact! But maybe they can't have my bombing. Maybe my b...
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Trends

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  Carolyn Bessette Kennedy has been an insider style icon for ever, but this year she has flipped from under-the-radar reference to global phenomenon. ( Wow, who would have guessed that our Carolyn was an insider style icon with world-wide appeal? ) Ryan Murphy's Love Story, a glossy dramatisation of her doomed romance with JFK Jr, gave us nine delicious hours of lingering closeups of her white tank tops and jeans, her simple black dresses, perfect black oval sunglasses and tortoiseshell headbands. ( Glossy, doomed, delicious and lingering -  perfect descriptions of our Carolyn.) Girl in a Blue Dress Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) Photo Credit: The Wallace Collection [CC BY-NC-ND]  If you didn't know you wanted to dress like CBK before you started watching, you did by the end. ( How true, how true .) Carole Radziwill, who was friends with Carolyn, has pointed out that copying CBK's style is pretty much the least CBK thing you could do. ( Of course. ) Her friend, she tol...
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Bucket Lists

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 I don't have a bucket list. And I wish people would stop asking me if I do... Recently I appeared on a podcast to discuss it. Of course the host asked me what is on my bucket list. For once, I didn't offer a raft of invectives. I simply said I didn't have one. But here's what I really think: the bucket list has blandified adventure. And that is a sin in my book. A Bucket of Salt Water Joseph Edward Southall (1861-1944) Photo Credit: Manchester Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND]   A bucket list reminds me in a horrible way of a consumer-led wedding list. And I never got married. Deliberately. It's not that I don't have loads of non-commodified, non-cuteified ideas for stuff I'd like to do - yes to another local dance; yes to gallivanting with my grandson and son. I'm a bit of an old hippy travel snob, so yes please to Senegal and Algiers, but you can keep Machu Picchu and soaring above the Grand Canyon in a helicopter. My interests are  not part of an intentional...
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How not to Age

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  Head of an Old Woman Percy Bigland (1858-1926) Photo Credit: Walker Art Gallery [CC  By-NC]  DAWN Start your day with a large glass of filtered water. Add a pinch of mineral-rich sea salt or an electrolyte mix... to help replenish minerals and support energy production. Step outside within 30 minutes of waking. Look towards the sun with your eyes uncovered - no glasses, contacts or sunglasses if possible. Just five to ten minutes stimulates receptors syncing your body clock and boosting cortisol and dopamine. If you wake before sunrise (common in winter), consider a violet or cyan blue-enriched lamp. Stand barefoot on grass or earth. This allows your body to discharge built-up static charge and absorb the earth's grounding energy Does the water have to be filtered? How large must the glass be and how much is a pinch? An electrolyte mix? Please enlighten me. The sun isn't always out at that time but there's no problem about the glasses or contacts. That's fantastic new...
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Cosmetic Surgery

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  Young Witches at Play in the Night Sky Ernest Procter (1886-1935) Photo Credit: Penlee House Gallery & Museum. [CC BY-ND]  I do not have the bone structure of  [Meryl] Streep and [Anna} Wintour so increasingly look in photos like the Wicked Witch of the West having a stroke. The obvious solution - or at least, the solution touted to women like me as obvious - is to have what is described as "work done". A "touch-up". A "refresh". Which means cosmetic surgery that looks natural (well, on camera, anyway). Such procedures include having your upper eyelids sliced back and fat injected underneath your eyes, known as upper and lower blepharoplasties, often referred to with the cutest name "blephs". Despite sounding like a torture method straight out of A Clockwork Orange , operations like these are now talked about so casually you'd think they were as common as getting your teeth whitened. And maybe they soon will be: every year, rates of cos...
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