So I am running behind on the A to Z again. Unfortunately, due to the complicated life I lead at the moment, I simply having no energy most days to write. I know some writers seem to thrive on stress and trauma but that's not me - my best work is when I'm relaxed and happy and when I can let my mind roam free.

So V is for Vanity. I was really going to let rip on this subject as I find the increasing emphasis on looks and body image, particularly in the media, very unwholesome and perhaps very damaging to many young men and women who aspire to look like photoshopped celebs. But of course, vanity is not always just about looks and when it is wrapped up in narcissism it can have so many more destructive traits.

So where I work at the moment, I see many women (mainly young but also older women too) absolutely caked in make-up and teetering around in high heels which in a few years will have their feet covered in bunions and deformed. I find it rather sad, that when these young women are at an age when the majority of them have healthy, fresh-looking skin they feel it necessary to plaster it with a cement about three shades darker than their natural skin tone. Top that with pencilled eyebrows and false eyelashes some of them just look like replica Barbie dolls. For old bags like myself, I kinda understand the need to cling onto to some looks and feel your best for as long as possible but, nevertheless, sometimes when I see faces with caked with makeup I seriously wonder if I would recognize the person underneath if I were to see them without makeup.

So, as I was saying, I was really going to let rip on this subject (I was just warming up there) but then last night Master Benedict and I were messing around with a mobile phone and he took a picture of me.

And there's no other way to say this...

But I looked like I'd been hit by a bus. A double decker bus. Probably travelling at 60mph.

And then after I'd been hit by a bus some bastard had inflated me with a bicycle pump.

So in other words, I looked shite. (And that's putting it mildy.)

So life hasn't been too good for me for the last two years or so and seeing that picture really brought it home to me that I need to look after myself more. In every way.

I guess there's a balance to be had in all things. At the moment I haven't found it. Hopefully, I'll find it soon but I am guessing it's not likely to happen for three or four years. In the meantime, I'm going out to buy some makeup and some bubble bath.