This is my Gen X Girl column from this week’s Savvy Magazine that appears in the Townsville Bulletin.

It’s no secret that I enjoy a drop of wine. OK, to be fair maybe that could be more than a mere drop, but I’m hardly Robinson Crusoe. Anyway big suck in to me because now I’m definitely going to get breast cancer. Well that’s what some study says anyway.

According to a recent Harvard University study, having one unit of wine a day could increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer by 15%. Having two units of wine a day will increase it by 50%. This is very bad news, especially when you consider that a unit is a piddling 100ml.

Is anyone putting down their glass of sav blanc as this read this riveting piece of information? Didn’t think so. If you’re anything like me you’ve learned to disregard information like this. We’re all suffering from Conflicting Health Theory Overload Syndrome.

Now this is not yet a medically recognised syndrome. I just made it up, but I have every confidence that it’s going to be picked up by the medical profession.

As a practical example of CHTOS let’s take my old friend wine. Wasn’t it only last year that health experts were advocating a couple of glasses a wine for cardio-vascular health? So for the sake of our health we enjoyed our daily tipple, reinforced by the results of another study that says drinkers live longer than kill-joy abstainers. Yippee. Heart beating fine and we’re fun and then along comes the latest study saying that we women are going to get cancer. Stupid sexist study.

Wine’s not the only breast cancer causing culprit out there. Apparently underarm deodorants are a big no-no. Sorry, I’m not giving that up—no one will talk to me. And wide strapped underwire bras are also taboo. That should boost the sale of those hideous ah ha bras that are being flogged on TV at the moment.

We’re also warned to avoid tooth fillings and root canals. I’m not sure that one can avoid a root canal. It’s not as though anyone chooses to have one. It’s more the pain that drives people to pay exorbitant sums of money to dentists rather than an aesthetic but there I go being all judgmental.

Anyway because I read a lot of women’s magazines and spend too much time on the internet I have a wealth of conflicting medical advice that may be helpful to you. So here goes.

1. Yoga does not make you fit because you mostly lie around a lot.
2. Bananas can help you give up smoking. A banana costs more than a cigarette.
3.  If your poo looks like little hard balls you are in trouble. Miranda Kerr says so.
4.  Drinking eight glasses of water a day is bunkum.
5. Your coffee addiction is inherited from your parents. Yes it really is your mother’s fault.
6. The whiskey diet is true. Lady Gaga said so.
7. Swearing reduces blood pressure.
8. Running is bad for you.
9. Soy can lead to the excessive feminisation of men. Put the soy and linseed bread back on the shelf boys.
10. 30% of men do not wash their hands after going to the toilet. Image

So for one of those questions that you never asked but wonder why you didn’t: Who were the models for the Joy of Sex pictures?

Well here’s how it went. The BBC says that Penguin, the book’s publisher, wanted to avoid being charged with obscenity, and thus they knew that in order to accurately depict sex in an instructive way, they had to find a way to illustrate it.

Originally, the people behind the book planned to hire people from London’s sex industry to perform the actions described in the book. Their photograph would be taken, and illustrators would work from those photos. However, the sex workers would often stop in the middle and ask for more money, so that plan had to be scrapped.

One of the book’s illustrators ended up volunteering to model for the photographs that would later become the famous black and white illustrations. Over two days in 1972, Charles Raymond and his wife twisted and tangled their bodies into all sorts of positions and were photographed dozens of times.

Oh for a simpler time. Nowadays you’d just google doggy style, 651 236 765 pages would appear and the illustrators would be spoiled for choice. Image

My own pregnancy ranks right up with the most horrible things that has ever happened to me. Nine months of all day sickness that saw me bedridden for a month and the short term ability to throw up in a rubbish bin or gutter without qualm. I can’t say I missed the smoking (because I don’t smoke) or the drinking (because I honestly thought that I had a very long hangover for the first week I was pregnant and never wanted to look at alcohol again) but I really missed the coffee. It wasn’t that I was even thinking about the effects of caffeine on my unborn baby–nope it made me throw up too.

Anyway 43 year old Carla is totally “fed up” while waiting for the birth of her second child. Actually I’d be pretty fed up with being called an elderly primagravida. It makes her sound like she’s ready for a bed in the local nursing home.

“The baby will be viable at any time from October 1,” the former model told French newspaper Le Parisien. Aurelien arrived on time, which means this could be a long wait, but I really do want this child so much.”

Okey dokey then.

I have visions of an induced labour on October 1, a packet of Marlboro Lights waiting by the bedside alongside a bottle of Moet et Chandon, a nanny and a night nurse.

There won’t be any photos though as Carla says that the birth of her child is “a totally private event.” But she may just have to trot out Sarkozy Jnr to give her husband’s French presidential  re-election campaign a boost. Image

This is my Gen X Girl column for this week’s Savvy magazine in the Townsville Bulletin.

Did you see those nasty fashion types dissing tennis queen, Sam Stosur, about her lack of fashion sense? Apparently her post US Open red and white striped dress with matching lippy was criticised by those in the fashion know as being hideous, ugly and even tranny-like. That’s rough.

Well boo sucks to you fashion critics. Samantha can wear a paper bag and parade around New York for all I care. She’s a tennis player—a US Open winner no less, not a fashion plate. And she’s sponsor’s dream for that little red stripey number was by Lacoste, the brand that funds her tennis wear. Smart girl.

Actually who are fashion critics? What job description do you have to fill to be a fashion critic? From what I can gather if you wear designer clothes and mix it with something from Vinnnie’s, you are cutting edge and therefore a fashionista who gets to sit in the front row at fashion shows. A designer bad and a sour look also add to the mix.

I’m guessing the people on cable show Fashion Police can label themselves critics. In that case hosting an entertainment show, being an old comedienne and the daughter of an old rock star must qualify you to be a spokesperson for what is fashionable.

The daughter of the old rock star to whom I referred is Kelly Osbourne. Do you remember her? Potty-mouthed, purple haired, potential Jenny Craig spokesperson, tattooed daughter from the imaginatively named reality show The Osbournes. Well flash-forward five years, she’s now a full-blown fashion critic. Not sure how it happened but it did.

In fact quite recently Kelly Osbourne got all lippy and criticised Princess Catherine for recycling clothes. Kelly said that she would want a new dress every day. Guess that’s why Prince William didn’t choose Kelly then. That and the drug-taking and the…well you get the idea.

I’m guessing that Princess Catherine probably would want a new dress every day, but prudently she realises that the British economy is in a bit of a mess and it probably isn’t the best time to be going all fashion show pony. Let’s have a reality check here, buying a new dress every day would be exhausting and, when the novelty wore off, just plain boring.

So who do the fashion critics love? Well they love Kate Moss, and I’ll be really honest here—and I may have alluded to this in previous columns—I just don’t get her. She has stringy hair, is cocaine skinny and has dodgy teeth. Yet any item of clothing that she puts on is deemed fashionable and everybody apes it. Weird.

Such is her power that she brought the opaque tight back into fashion. I so fashion dumb that I didn’t even know they were out of fashion. Black opaque tights are the staple of my winter wardrobe. They cover legs that haven’t seen a razor for a month and make you look taller and skinnier. Actually Kate Moss thanks for bringing them back.

Princess Catherine thanks you too. She’s been copping flak for wearing sheer pantyhose and boring shoes. I actually think the wearing of those items might be in the How to be a Princess handbook. I can’t see her rocking a pair of strappy Prada platform wedges to Buckingham Palace. Image

Here’s the summary of what a healthy you and your poo should look like.

A HEALTHY POO:
• Tells us when it is ready to come out
• Slips out easily
• Needs no coaxing
• Is well formed (poo should look like a brown banana with a point at one end or take on an S shape)
• Is well hydrated (poo that looks like little balls wadded together has been in the colon too long)

WHAT IS NOT A GOOD SIGN?
• Having no urge
• It hurts
• It takes a long time
• Is always very loose and fast
• Looks like little balls or pieces
• There’s blood or mucus

Here’s wishing you good health and banana-shaped poo. Image

This is from my Gen X Girl weekly column in this week’s

Along with 11 million other Australians I went and saw the final instalment of the Harry Potter series last week. It was good, not great but that’s OK as the series generally was excellent, not at all over-rated. What is over-rated is the fact that it was in shown 3D.

3D is over-rated. Think about it. You are paying the price of the GDP of a small African nation to watch bits of paper floating just out of your reach. Whoop-di-doo.

And you have to wear those disgusting glasses that make you look like Roy Orbison in the afterlife. They are not only hideous looking, they are also heavy. So heavy in fact that I walked out of the movie theatre with two red indents either side of my nose. Not my most attractive moment.

They’re also distracting. Let’s be honest here—3D and the glasses don’t exactly give the clearest picture. I spend the whole of the film wondering who the actors were in the Three Musketeers trailer. I couldn’t clearly see their faces. Stupid 3D.

How then is the push for 3D TV going to pan out? I’d be thinking that if you jumped on the bandwagon early you’d be feeling dudded. It’s not as though there is a plethora of 3D programs out there for you to watch. And there’s the whole wearing of the glasses and what on earth do you do when people come round. Do you wear your silly glasses and let your guests watch the weird blurry TV or do you switch it off and have to make useless conversation?

Enough though about 3D. There’s heaps more things out there that are over-rated. I’ve compiled a list of my other top 5.

1. Twilight series. I tried, really I did. I persevered through books one and two and I have to be frank—they are crap. Lines such as “his lovely, lovely face” did nothing to convince me that these are nothing more than glorified Mills and Boons dressed up like vampires. Movies too. Rubbish.
2. Kate Moss. Can someone tell me why this woman is still and icon after 20 years? She is bony, skinny with ordinary hair and even more ordinary teeth. She’s not even particularly pretty. She lives on fags, booze and recreational drugs and it’s starting to show. Yet put her in a tweed jacket and a pair of denim cutoffs and hey presto the fashionistas go wild, a style is born. Why?
3. Pastel tattoos. They’re not even real tatts. More like a colouring book for the body of middle-aged women. If you want to commit to permanent ink on your skin till you die then go for a hard out one. Think Pamela Anderson’s barbwire or Mat Rogers’s primary colours.
4. Jazz music. Seriously it sounds like they are just making it up as they go along. Mostly listened to by skinny, older men who wear scarves and statement hats.
5. Facebook. Big fat time sucking device that keeps you abreast with the minutiae of someone’s else’s life that is more boring that yours. “Should I hang the washing out?” is not a post—it is stupidity. Look outside the window. Don’t bore your 456 friends with inanity. Image

Anyway to put it succinctly it’s a condition whereby women pig out in public yet starve themselves when they get home. Sort of like the reverse of how it used to be when we nibbled on lettuce leaves in public only to inhale cake when we got home.

Would it surprise you to know female celebrities pioneered the trend?

Take the willow-like Gwyneth Paltrow who “adores pizza and pasta”. In fact she is such a carb expert that she has written her own cookbook. Yes Gwyneth we really believe you when you tell us you love to chow down on nursery food every evening with the kiddies.

She goes on to destroy this happy scene by trying to convince us that baked lettuce leaves taste just like potato chips. What a lot of rot. I tried it. It tastes and looks like the lettuce that gets left behind in the vegetable crisper for three weeks.

Apparently Victoria Posh Spice Beckham eats like a horse, Drew Barrymore loves macaroni cheese and Kate Hudson is partial to a waffle or three.

It’s a trend isn’t it, this public eating? In fact Hollywood publicity agents actually organise DIPEs (Documented Instances of Public Eating) for their clients. This is because Hollywood movie stars are under increasing pressure to be good role models. Public eating is therefore paramount to being a good role model.

So what does that mean for the rest of us. Are we really gullible enough to believe that eating macaroni cheese will give us the body of Drew Barrymore? Surely we’re not that dumb.

We know, don’t we, that anyone whose Body Mass Index is below 16 does not eat on a regular basis and that their relationship with carbs is nothing but a distant memory.

I’m actually starting to have a new respect for the likes of model Kate Moss who says that her motto is “nothing taste as good as skinny feels”. At least she’s honest. Given her history with recreational drugs it’s pretty obvious how she maintains her figure. But at least she’s not a hypocrite. You only ever see her with a cigarette in her hand, never a Big Mac.

So girls, for the sisterhood, if you are engaging in any liarexic behaviour, then make a commitment to stop. Own up that your smoking-hot body is due to two hour daily gym sessions and a protein diet. Don’t tell us that you can eat what you like and never put on weight. Don’t be a liarexic. Image

According to a study published in the British Medical Journal not only does drinking eight glasses of water fail to deliver on health benefits but it can possibly cause negative side effects such as hyponatremia, a low blood sodium condition that sounds bad arse.

Scottish doctor Margaret McCartney, who conducted the study said that claims of health benefits are “thoroughly debunked nonsense“. She believes the health myths are perpetuated by bottled water manufacturers.

“If you’re drinking excessively, if you’re drinking beyond thirst, if you’re drinking beyond comfort, your kidneys are actually having to work very, very hard,” McCartney said.

So how much water should we be drinking? The Mayo Clinic recommends that enough fluid is drunk so that you never feel thirsty and you produce about 6 cups of colourless or slightly yellow urine per day. Not quite sure how you check that amount and what happens if you take a slow release vitamin. Fluoro yellow all day is my experience.

I think I’ll just stick to my 8 plus glasses despite the good doctor’s warning. After all model Miranda Kerr says we should be drinking 1.5 to 2L per day. And Miranda would know such things, wouldn’t she? After all she’s a supermodel. Image

I love makeovers. Love TV makeover shows more for that matter. Property, people, lifestyles—I’m all over them. Just so long that some that was previously in need of some serious attention comes out looking all better at the end of it. Magic in my eyes.

So you can imagine my absolute fascination with the new public spectacle: The Beautification of Shane Warne—From Bogan to Baron. OK, I made that title up but I’m keeping copy write on it. I see a reality show in the wings. And I also hear the sound of beer cans around the country being crumpled in disbelief as Australia’s CUBBY (cashed up bogan) king icon goes all metrosexual.

It’s all that Elizabeth Hurley’s fault. She’s the one who got her sticky mitts all over Warnie and papered off the rough edges. And what has emerged from the chrysalis that was the drinking, smoking and ample-gutted Warnie grub? Why a butterfly so slick and smooth that he could go straight to Madam Tussaud’s Wax Museum without ever having to pose.

Do you remember Warnie BE (Before Elizabeth)? There was the cricketer’s tan, the wrinkles around the eyes, the fairly decent beer belly and the gelled up, highlighted Yeah-Yeah hair. He also sported calloused thumbs, not so much from bowling, but from texting, or should that be sexting, up a storm.

So what’s changed? Well the sexting has stopped, cleverly replaced by an addiction to Twitter that has unfortunately given us more information about Elizabeth and Shane’s private life than New Idea ever could.

The beer gut is gone, disappeared, no more. Apparently this is due to Elizabeth putting Shane on a diet that included lots of wheat grass. The diet was also conducted via Twitter so, just in case we were interested, we could share in Warnie’s weight loss journey. “Feel like a hot pie with copious amounts of sauce with crinkle cut chips!! What’s the best pie?” he tweeted, followed with: “NO Shane!! 78kg is target currently 82.5. Settle on a protein shake with an apple and banana – sob.” Gosh it sounds like he was having fun. But it has worked because he apparently lost 10kg. Well done, Warnie.

Warnie’s tan is nice and even now, as is his wrinkle-free face. Has someone been hitting the Fraxel laser and Botox? Well no–it’s all due to the magic effects of cosmetic company Estee Lauder’s moisturisers. I know this because Warnie tweeted it. Elizabeth gave us more specific information about the particular moisturiser when she further tweeted “So glad the Estée Lauder Resilience Lift moisturiser is working & everyone thinks you’ve had a face lift.” Would it surprise you to know that Elizabeth is the face of Estee Lauder. I see a big Christmas bonus for Liz.

Anyway like any good makeover show Warnie had his big unveiling at Elton John’s White Tie and Tiara Ball. He trotted out in his beautifully cut tuxedo, hair slicked back and de-highlighted. His eyebrows were waxed and there was a suggestion of mascara and guy-liner. Mascara! Guyliner!

And there is the picture complete—Shane Warne, trophy wife. Image