Floppy, flappy faces = good

Having spent the evening glancing at the TV slightly more than usual it's occurred to me to that we have reached the stage where the most dignified, and in fact sane, thing you can do in the public eye these days is avoid cosmetic surgery. Are we agreed, people of the tele watching republic?

Every time I see a floppy, flappy face in a state of natural motion I feel fine. Relaxed even. Perfectly ok with the world. Contrast that with being confronted with the sight of the apparently recently embalmed and I'm unnerved.

Actually, that's not always strictly true. Often I'm fixated - particularly if I can't quite work out at first whether they've actually had surgery - and then all I do is stare. I scan the face for tell tale signs - wondering if that's just really puffy lipstick, trying to remember what shape their face used to be before and finally zooming in on the forehead and watching for movement like a cat in a bush. Now I think of it surgery must be on the up because the amount of times I've pounced face-first into the TV screen has gone right down lately.

But what I don't do is listen to a word that they say. At some point I realise this and, most likely equating the inability to concentrate with boredom, switch over. I've got a feeling this isn't what programme makers are aiming for.

Obviously I'm generalising. I don't always automatically turn over. And I don't mean to give women who are under pressure to look good a hard time. Nor do I wish to suggest that they have nothing of interest to contribute.

But I am saying that I'm not twelve. I am more than capable of dealing with a woman who looks like an adult presenting TV shows or the news. I don't jerk back in horror if she furrows her brow in thought and demonstrates that she's done that a few times before in her life. And I'm less likely to value the judgement of programme makers who value cosmetic procedures over the normal, human face.

Mind you, I shall be forty this year. Would it be a really jolly pun if I were to say 'watch this face'?!... Oh.