ALEXANDRA SHULMAN’S NOTEBOOK: Why these slim, smug jabbers give me the needle

For refusers like me, who don’t use cosmetic adjustments like Botox and fillers to make ourselves look younger, life has now become more fraught and we have to deal with the semaglutide shots like Ozempic that offer the opportunity to drop several clothing sizes .

Those who do not indulge in these treatments must increasingly accept that we are knowingly making ourselves look less, shall we say, ‘fresh’ and dirtier, than we have the opportunity to do.

The big change is not the fact that such interventions are widely available, but that while they were previously kept secret, women (like Nadine Dorries writing in the Daily Mail last week) are going public with their habit.

They no longer hope that others will think that their newly relaxed face or slim body is the result of self-control or a lucky twist of fate. Now they don’t pretend that their changed appearance has any other reason than the use of these drugs. This has made the whole question of how we all choose to look very different.

Those who wait cannot even experience the smug smell of satisfaction that we might have experienced if others were not honest about their behavior.

Pens for the Ozempic drug are on a production line to be packaged at the Danish drug manufacturer Novo Nordisk’s site in Hillerod, Denmark

Alexandra Shulman explains why sleek, smug talk gets her down. Users happily tell everyone whether they are taking Ozempic or Mounjaro and talkatively exchange the phone numbers of beauty technicians who can help get rid of the wispy Ozempic face

Instead, users happily tell everyone whether they’re taking Ozempic or Mounjaro and talkatively exchange the phone numbers of beauty technicians who can help get rid of the wispy Ozempic face. Their portrait is still in the attic, but the difference is that they don’t mind everyone knowing it’s there.

No matter how much I try to adopt the attitude that other people’s bodies are their own business, there’s still that nagging annoyance about being in the company of those who strut around in their newly pharmaceutically enhanced slim physiques and trained jaws.

Yes, it’s a hard life to choose not to stick needles in my face and stomach, but if I continue to resist that option, I need to stop being so annoyed by those who chose a different route.

In the meantime, perhaps they could help out by ending the practice of ordering large quantities of fattening food at restaurants and then not eating it because of its appetite-suppressing effect. Leaving the rest of us with good old fashioned willpower as we try in vain to stop picking at our side orders of chips that we try so hard to avoid.

Lights out, time for separate bedrooms?

The different attitudes toward light among those who share a bed can be as tricky as room temperature preferences. At my friend David’s request, we had blackout curtains installed, which, together with the clock running backwards, means I’m unhappily in a pit of sensory deprivation.

Where once dawn crept my fingers through the curtains and gently led me into the new day, I now have to wake myself from sleep in the pitch black and then make my way to the longed for daylight next door. Could this mean that separate bedrooms are coming soon?

There are few rivals in this raunchy legacy

Alex Hassell in The Rivals. Who would have thought that a series about predatory sexual behavior, high-end lifestyles and ridiculous puns would be so popular?

Almost everyone I’ve spoken to has enjoyed the Disney+ adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s Rivals, with its over-the-top mischievousness and stereotypical 1980s characters. Who would have thought that a series about predatory sexual behavior, high-end lifestyles and ridiculous puns would be so popular? Let’s hope, to borrow a Dame Jilly word, that it prompts more ‘upbeat’ shows to be made, rather than grim stories about the underbelly of life.

Not a new way to spend your days

The writer Nick Hornby has said he has given up reading fiction at the age of 67. He explains that you can at least learn something from nonfiction, even bad nonfiction, while indifferent fiction is a waste of the time he has left.

Calculating which activities are a waste of our precious time seems like a dangerous route to take. A bad novel may not add anything to the richness of my days, but it is no more pointless than so many other things I do. Where should I start? There are the hours you spend listening to the news on three different radio stations offering the same information repeatedly. The unnecessary trip to the local deli for a cappuccino, when you can make a cup of coffee more quickly at home. An embarrassing amount of time playing games on my phone and spending hours scrolling through Instagram and watching videos of babies’ sleep habits that seem to fill my feed.

Nick Hornby. The writer has said that he gave up reading fiction at the age of 67. He explains that with nonfiction, even bad nonfiction, you can at least learn something, while indifferent fiction is a waste of the time he has left.

Then I check my favorite online clothing stores to see if there’s anything I can’t resist and look up the price of flights for city trips I won’t be making. If I add up all that time, there are probably more than enough hours to write a bad novel myself.

No budget anxiety for these non-doms

As non-doms flee Britain, a drive through London’s Kensington on Halloween proved that they haven’t yet. The residents of these Non-Dom Central streets displayed the most ostentatious displays of extravagance. Forget a carved pumpkin and some white spider webs; every white stucco double-fronted house seemed to have employed decorators, florists, caterers and entertainers to turn their front yards into a mega-dollar movie set.

Hordes of proud parents stood on the streets and recorded the events on their phones. Don’t worry about the implications of Rachel Reeves’ budget in these parts.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves poses with the red Budget Box as she leaves 11 Downing Street, central London, on October 30, 2024

Mitzi is so brave to reveal her scars

Last week I wrote that Primark had a transgender boy in the window. The company has since told me that the poster, part of a breast cancer awareness campaign, did not feature a trans boy but a woman named Mitzi, who courageously had herself photographed showing her scars after a double mastectomy.

My sincere apologies to Mitzi and Primark for the confusion.