So what if we get wrinkly, saggy and baggy as we grow older? It’s the way of the world, writes Moreen Simpson.
Oh, Madonna, fit hiv ye done tae yersellie?
The queen of pop at the Grammy Awards looked like a wacky waxwork from Madame Tussauds. Not so much Material Girl, as Who’s That Girl? Mickey Rourke, even!
From being a young beauty, then attractive middle-ager, the feel gype has transformed hersellie into a 64-year-old facelift fright. Mask-like skin which moved not an iota when she spoke, hiked-up cheekbones, high-flying brows, puffy jaw, lips like tractor tyres.
The silly ass has even had implants in her bum, presumably hoping it looks big in a’thing. Me that’s spent a lifetime battling thunder thighs.
You’d think a quine with so much talent and success would have risen to the challenge of ageing with a damned sight more common sense and dignity. So what if we get wrinkly, saggy and baggy? It’s the way of the world.
We can do little things to tart us up along the way, but going under the surgeon’s knife to rummel oor epidermis up into our hairlines, then getting pumped with gruesome fillers, is the sign of somebody nae happy in their ain skin.
You could sit beside the once gorgeous Jennifer Grey from Dirty Dancing on the 23 bussie today and nae recognise her. Ditto Renée Zellweger. And yer nae tellin’ me Carol Vorderman’s Kewpie-doll cheeks, mooth and bombshell curves are nothin’ to do with a scalpel and a pucklie silicone baggies. As for the now almost freakish Katie Price – peer lassie.
RIP my bonnie brows
I’m at the stage where I’m on the hunt for those shiny Botox foreheads every time I switch on the telly. As for the gleaming white, perfectly even gnashers a’body’s sportin’ – they canna half ruin the suspense in a thriller when the dirty, uncouth, poverty-stricken baddie opens his gob to reveal a blinding set of pearly whites.
Mind you, the trout pout count in Love Island this year is low, maybe because those pneumatic smackers gave the loons – resplendent in hideous, hair-net implants – the heebie-jeebies.
OK, I admit, I’m a feartie and wouldn’t have needles stuck in my face if… you stuck needles in my face. Maybe that hairdresser all those years ago turning my supposed-to-be-blonde hair a deep, fuchsia pink, (followed by bright candy floss when he attempted to right it) put me off titivations for life.
This is what winners look like 🏆 #LoveIsland pic.twitter.com/PYssVwzeVQ
— Love Island (@LoveIsland) February 8, 2023
Or maybe it was that mate of mine from my 20s who was training as a hairdresser and declared my eyebrows too big and bushy. She’d been learning how to pluck and would do the bizz.
I happily went under her tweezers for nearly an hour. When I looked in the mirror, I near grat. My bonnie brown brows were no more than horizontal wee commas, thin, wispy and – horrors – arching.
When dad clapped eyes on them, he declared, thoughtfully: “You look like yer in a permanent state of shock.” They never grew back. Now white, spindly, flying slugs. Just like Madonna’s.
More, please, Sally
No, my predicted ending to Happy Valley was way oot. That’s why I’m just a daft wifie in Aberdeen, and not being toasted, as the sublime writer Sally Wainwright is.
I suspect I was not alone in the nation for guessing something along the lines of grandson Ryan being faced with having to kill his father. But, instead, thanks to new thoughts by Sarah Lancashire, we had a breathtaking face-to-face in which Catherine ended up trying to save the life of the man she despised.
Really disnae get much better. More, please, Sally.
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press & Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970
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