What’s wrong with a B-cup?

I am trying my best to fit in to LA life. I have rented a red convertible mustang, bought some gawdy gold shoes and even went to a Pilates class last night. My big hair and Smart-Lipo recovery corset also help. But still things are not quite right.

Homage to the Implant, Jessica Townsend, 2004

There seem to be two things missing; breasts. As far as I can make out, no one in LA has normal tits. I’d be amazed if you can even buy a B-cup bra anywhere in this city. Everyone from the sales assistants to the ladies-who-lunch on Rodeo Drive have implants. Or maybe they’re not implants, maybe there’s something in the water that stimulates the mammary gland and they’re all natural; but somehow I doubt it.

Yesterday I went to interview a leading LA dermatologist. In his waiting-room there was a rather (no, incredibly) tacky bronze statue of a mother and child called ‘Mother’s Love – Father’s gem’. This is the kind of thing Americans can somehow say without throwing up, like when you ask them how they are and they reply; “I’m feeling really good about myself, really positive. I went through a rough patch but now I’m like totally over all that and I feel a sense of wholeness I didn’t before.” Just a plain “fine” would have sufficed.

But back to the statue. The mother is gazing adoringly at the daughter, a toddler aged about three. She has her arm around the child. The toddler is gazing adoringly at the largest breasts I have ever seen.

I once saw a Rodin statue called Young Mother and Child. The naked mother in seated, the child is in her lap and their heads are close together. It is a beautiful depiction of the close bond between mother and child. I guess this is what the aim was here; but the thing that really hits you, as is so often the case in LA, is the ridiculous size of the breasts.

But the anti-ageing treatments seem to be having some effect. Yesterday I walked past a man sitting at a bus stop. “You got some change to help me get a sandwich,” he asked. After a week in New York I can barely afford my own sandwich so I walked past briskly. Then he added the words “young lady”. I immediately turned around and gave him a couple of dollars.

Today I am meeting a friend for lunch at the Ivy. This is LA’s “leading celebrity restaurant” and apparently when stars want to deny they’re splitting up they eat lunch there so the paparazzi can see them together. I’ll keep you posted on who is being dumped. A website tells me Brad Pitt was seen there recently but I don’t hold out much hope; he now lives with Angelina in New Orleans.
My only problem now is where to find a decent pair of tits before lunch? Maybe room service?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

Big hair, small stomach

Hair Don'tThe week after Britney Spears ended up with no hair, I ended up with twice as much. At Rodolfo Valentin’s salon in New York I have been treated to his famous “hair infusions.” They are an advanced form of hair extensions that don’t damage your hair but still make you look like a Desperate Housewife (which of course is my main aim in life). As you walk into the salon there is a big poster which reads: Come in with the hair you’ve got, leave with the hair you want.”

I had had a particularly dreadful haircut (at Harvey Nichols can you believe it?) and every time I looked in the mirror my hair made me alternately depressed, at how limp it looked, and furious at how much money it cost. Anyway Rodolfo sorted me out. I wafted out of his salon feeling like a million dollars. Even my husband (who normally hates all this sort of thing) concedes I am now more fun to be with and look better.

As I write I am tucked up in bed having had the treatment I warned you about below. This is called smart-lipo and is a much less violent form of liposuction which not only removes fat deposits but tightens the skin.

At the moment I look (and feel) like a mad-woman. I am wearing a strange black corset and my stomach (the area my new best friend Dr. LookGood treated) is swollen and slightly sore. The two pin-prick areas he used to get to my fat are turning a rather nasty shade of blue. But otherwise I feel amazingly good.

This might sound insane to you but in the interests of the book I felt I had to try it. And of course it helps that Dr. LookGood has promised me my stomach will be flat for the rest of my life. This is extremely good news for someone who has suffered from a pot belly since the age of nine and whose body has been ravaged by three children and industrial quantities of pasta.

“It’s like doing five million sit-ups,” Dr LookGood told me as I lay on his treatment bed and he manipulated a laser around my fat deposits. I will be uncomfortable for a couple of days but not nearly as uncomfortable as I would be doing five million sit-ups.
Anyway, I leave you with a brilliant quote from Bill Maher in the Los Angeles Times: “When you look at Britney [Spears], head shaved, half-naked, drunk, crying, puking, walking into walls, crazy as a loon, remember: This is the woman, back in 2003, who said, “I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes.”

And I think Tony Blair is a jolly good bloke…..

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007