Hide the Needles and Stand Back from the Knife.

Recently I was lucky enough to go along as a friend's plus-one to a fashion show.

Oh, what's not to like?

Pretty frocks, complimentary champagne, goodie bags - all on a school night.

But what I wasn't prepared for was the extra treat - the massive smorgasbord of bad plastic surgery and botox that was on show.

Oh. My. Stars.

It was stunning.

Don't get me wrong, there were loads of women who looked stunning and who clearly had a bit of work on the side. It's not these women I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the women who went that extra mile - whose faces were so obviously plumped with poison or stretched and slightly twisted by surgery that they were left with a contorted/stunned/doll like appearance.

And many of them looked far too young to have started to make themselves look like Halloween Barbie. It was just looked like they hadn't learnt how to say, 'Thank you but I've had enough.'

My friend and I were like a coupla kids in a candy shop, 'Oh wow, look at her!'

'Yeah nothing moves except the bags under her eyes!'

It was a fascinating spectacle, one I wouldn't have missed for the world. However at one point during the evening I leaned over to my friend and whispered, 'I'm really pleased I'm me.'

Needless to say, my lines don't have to fear being blown back into my youth.

Shoes: they're hell of a way to inject life into Friday afternoon.

Picture this. Friday afternoon in a large open plan female skewed office.  Everyone weary from the week, gasping for wine o’clock to roll around and the minute hand on the clock making like it’s trapped in Monday afternoon after a long weekend. 

Into this situation bursts a cameraman… not with a camera but laden with boxes of shoes. All sorts of shoes. Shiny ones, high ones, flat ones, boot ones.

On my. It was like flies to a honey pot. Suddenly he was surrounded by a gaggle of excited women pawning over his wares.

‘This is waay better than wine,’ was one of the calls that went up.

It has to be said, importing shoes is not the most obvious income stream that springs to mind when considering what a cameraman could do in his down time.

‘How do you go from cameraman to shoe salesman?’

‘In New Zealand you guys get so ripped off with shoes, they're so expensive. And I was just really sick of my wife spending so much money on them…so we decided to do it ourselves.'

Genius.

Byte Me

Boy oh boy I’ve felt like my head has been about to explode of late. Talk about being busy, Trev.

The guilty culprit is work - finding myself in the unenviable position of dragging two series of television across the line at exactly the same time.  

This scheduling clash could not to be avoided and I could see it looming like a great time-hoovering juggernaut  on my horizon. And, after the last three weeks, I have come to a conclusion - my brain is simply too small. 

I need a geopbyte.

In the interim could someone pass me a cup of tea, a lie down and Spring?