The Perfect Pose

The perfect pose is an essential natural response not only when faced with the lens of a camera but at all times of day and night; never let your defences drop girls, the perfect pose can knock lbs off your weight and years off your age, as can black lycra, botox and a good bra!!!!

The perfect pose should become second nature from an early age and refined and adapted according to the circumstance. What is cute at 5 is a cringe at 50 so props such as Daddy’s lap is a definite no no for anyone over the age of 25, not only does it make you look like Anna Nicole Smith but it also makes “daddy” look like a rampant paedophile and, I can assure you, it will find its way onto “Awkward family photos.com” before you can say Ronnie Wood……….

“Tits out and bums in” is generally a good formula for a row of girlies; but hen nights and tarts on tour beware, get lined up, regulation is better than separation, “safety in masses hides fat asses”. Practice your pout mouth in the mirror. A good one is “Wogan”. Forget the old “say cheese” malarkey, it will only distort your lips to the shape of a Royal Mail letterbox and make you look like Cherie Blair, it plays havoc with your crows feet and if you have the slightest trace of a double chin forget it, NEVER ever open your mouth in public again!!!!

Models traditionally have a legacy of facial lines from a lifetime of forced smiling, I personally know an ex-model with wrinkles to match Mick Jagger, and so a parsimonious economy of “gurning” is to be recommended.

I can speak from a lifetime experience of having to hide fat knees and was pleased to see the likes of Kylie and Danni adopting the tried and tested recipe that I had thought I had invented many years ago, it’s simple, knees pressed firmly together in a vice like grip with one foot slightly before the other…da…..da …..see, this can give the impression of passable, if not perfect, knees. Check the Minogues out next time you see them on the red carpet!!

PFB has the perfect formula; right hand on hip, a side on twist of the waist, right leg slightly bent forward with a point of the toe…… its what she calls “the Paris Hilton” (not that Paris has a lot to recommend herself but her “people” do know how to promote her best assets and hide her huge feet!!!!). PFB has demonstrated this perfect pose at many a prem and red carpet do and it’s variation is currently being modelled on page 30 of this month’s Company High Street Edit magazine.

Excess Baggage

The utter humiliation of having to unpack and redistribute our excess baggage at check in, was only ameliorated by our access to “previous day check in facility” and was not therefore witnessed by a 747 full of HP’s wrestling with their bum bags and shell suits. Horrors; that my entire bikini collection may have been on display and ridicule to the entire population of Basildon gawping in amazement as to why anyone would ever need 27 bikinis, 8 pairs of identical skinny jeans and 10 pairs of matching sunglasses…….albeit principally from Primani!

No I was not going to set up a stall and hawk them on the beach simply my intention was to give them to my loyal friends in a communist country where Lycra is still an invention of wonder and amazement, ancient mobile phones fetch a princely sum on the black market and Top Shop is a designer label equivalent in status to Christian Dior.However our lame excuses as to the remarkable over estimation of our baggage allowance fell on the deaf ears of the sympathetically challenged aspiring Trolley-dolly behind the counter, clearly still in traumatic recovery from her recent personality by-pass and a graduate with honours from the Saddam Hussein charm school, her displeasure was further amplified when her supervisor intervened and suggested we purchase a striking new holdall for the princely sum of 10 notes and thus re-distribute our heavier items at no extra cost. We had documentation that we had booked before the allowance was reduced and although a good 15 kilos over limit she had a more sympathetic ear when I assured her only 50% of it would be returning as I leave behind the diverse and explicit shopping list from my Cuban friends. Not to mention three pairs of fluffy bunny ears, check. Three identical Che Guevara T-shirts, check (coals to Newcastle comes to mind!!!) and three inflatable union jack air guitars, check...well it was a wedding and someone had to organise the stag do!!!!

What is it with this uniform that it is a license to be miserable and unpleasant to happy holidaymakers? I don’t doubt the reality that we had already pre-allocated seats in row 1, would have disempowered her and diminished her authority to relegate us to the rear of the aircraft and subsequent tail end trauma for ten hours. So as Chechzilla (therein lies a clue!!!) breathed fire, we decanted boots, bottles and bras in order to reduce the weights from 30kg down to a mere 23; apparently ‘elf and safety now prohibit the lifting of such excessive volumes. Since when did those strapping steroid enhanced baggage handlers become such wusses? Apparently April 2009……. and jolly lucky I wasn’t travelling with my Louis Vuitton steamer wardrobe trunk, goodness me, whatever does Joan Collins do when she flies with Thomson?

These check-in cheerleaders are generally one and the same who allocate seats and later meet and greet at the gate but this Chechzilla had met her match. Having already tolerated the Spanish inquisition as to the weight of our hand luggage (which fortunately resided in the hotel room throughout the endurance of this sad little episode) we had assured her it was no more than a small tote bag, We are visualising a neat little Longchamps Le Pliage here…….NO NO Noooooo, minor porky lost in imagination, I had the presence of mind to calculate that Chechzilla on duty at 10pm, would not be present for the morning shift and a new fresh team would be there to pass through our commodious carry on bags (now overflowing with shoes and sandals).

Having no spare luggage labels I was convinced our fetching new carryall would stray en-route, its contents lost forever so, as a precaution, I did feel it necessary to wear 2 jackets, virtually the entire contents of my jewellery roll and cowboy boots through security to the departures lounge just in case we were weighed again. Thus “Bling-ed” to excess I hit the “Jackpot” going through the metal detectors, all the lights flashed, alarms sounded and for a minute I thought I was back in Vegas!!! But the security guy probably just assumed I was Katie Price’s sister and with a quick frisk and wave of his magic wand off I went.

Fortunately all was well and there are now some very happy Pimped up bunnies in Cuba.