Liz Jones’s Diary: In which I have a few more tweaks 


We do all this and the men in our lives don’t even comb their hair

I know I said last week that it’s how nice you are inside that shows on your face. But as I contemplate flying to Sydney to meet the Hunk, I’ve been reconsidering that sentiment. And so it transpires that on Monday I find myself in a little mews in Notting Hill, right across from Nikki Tibbles flowers, pressing on the buzzer of a medi-spa called Lazeo London.

I am buzzed in. I make my way up to reception. Oh, I think to myself, how many times have I climbed steep stairs to a medi-spa? Starting with a clinic on Beauchamp Place in Knightsbridge when I was still a student, wanting to be rid of the capillaries in the whites of my eyes, not realising Janice Dickinson’s eyes on the cover of Vogue had been airbrushed. I was prescribed drops containing the shells of snails*, which never worked.

A beautiful blonde woman greets me. She says she once did a story with me about a Nigella Lawson dress. I don’t remember. I do so many stories. She says the quiet mews is useful as celebrities are dropped off to have invasive treatments and no one ever sees them come and go. I am here to see Dr Victoria Jaminson, a beautiful Irishwoman (everyone is beautiful in Notting Hill). She tells me she has been reading my column. ‘I have only two words to say to you,’ she says. ‘David. Run.’

I am running. I am.

I’m led to a room. I’m not wearing any make-up. Dr Jaminson stares at me for a long time. ‘You have a perfect, heart-shaped face. Great skin. Beautiful.’

I don’t think she is lying, because what would be the point? She goes on, ‘You are lucky. Your neck is fine, and your eyelids haven’t sagged.’ Oh, well, two less things to worry about.

She doesn’t want to give me too much Botox in my forehead, as that will make my eyelids droop. We don’t want that. Just a little, and a smattering around the eyes.

‘How long is it since you had the face-lift?’

Is nothing secret? Sacred?

‘About eight years.’

She asks me to frown. And smile. She is very thorough. She takes a photograph of me against a door. I feel as though I’ve just been arrested and charged. The crime? Growing old. Not dying. 

We opt for some filler in my cheeks, too. Then she asks me if I have heard of the thread. ‘What’s that?’ I say. ‘A new Netflix miniseries?’

‘It’s a thread that is placed in your jaw and then up to your forehead, and it pulls everything up.’

‘Why do I not know about this?’ I ask her. Just like Carrie when told by her assistant that her Chanel bag is rented from Bag Borrow or Steal.

‘The new thread is different.’ I don’t even know about the old thread. ‘It bends, it moves. I don’t do it, but I can give you the number of a man who does.’

I say that I don’t want to end up looking like Jennifer Aniston.

‘You won’t. Trust me.’

I don’t know. We do all this and the men in our lives don’t even own floss. They don’t brush their tongues. They don’t even comb their hair.

Thing is, I’m getting very nervous about flying to Sydney on the off chance that the Hunk:

A. Is still single and not remarried.

B. Fancies me.

I am worried my face will explode.

Why do we not learn from past behaviour? When I thought I might get back with my husband, I went running like a mad thing round Highbury Fields. Now, I am having poison injected into my face in the hope of a date down under.

A friend emails me. ‘On no account be tempted to write about flying to Sydney. You will blow the romance! For once, you have to forget the column inches and put passion first! The Hunk could be the f*** of a lifetime, and remember, you are at your peak. Sexy, successful. More interesting than most other women he will have met. If it takes off, there will be endless column inches going forward.’

The thing is, I just never listen. It’s too late…

* This was before I became vegan. Poor snails.

 

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